In the autumn of 1939, as war sweeps across Eastern Europe, a six-year-old boy is sent away by his parents to hide in the countryside. They believe he’ll be safer there. Within weeks, the woman who was meant to care for him is dead, and the boy is alone. Dark-haired and olive-skinned, he looks nothing like the people around him. In the remote, superstitious villages he wanders through, that is enough to make him an outsider. Some take him for a Gypsy, some for a Jew, some for a bearer of curses and evil spirits. He passes from one household to the next, sheltered by some and hunted by others, learning through every encounter how people treat anyone who is different. The title comes from an image at the heart of the book: a bird painted in bright colors and released back into the sky, where its own flock no longer recognizes it. Told in stark, spare prose, The Painted Bird is a harrowing, nightmarish fable about war, cruelty, and survival. It is one of the most disturbing and controversial novels of the twentieth century.