Pianist, The

The memoir that impressed Roman Polanski’s Oscar-winning movie, which gained the Cannes Movie Pageant’s most prestigious prize―the Palme d’Or.

Named one of many Finest Books of 1999 by the Los Angeles Instances

On September 23, 1939, Wladyslaw Szpilman performed Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp minor reside on the radio as shells exploded outdoors―so loudly that he could not hear his piano. It was the final reside music broadcast from Warsaw: That day, a German bomb hit the station, and Polish Radio went off the air.

Although he misplaced his total household, Szpilman survived in hiding. In the long run, his life was saved by a German officer who heard him play the identical Chopin Nocturne on a piano discovered among the many rubble. Written instantly after the warfare and suppressed for many years, The Pianist is a surprising testomony to human endurance and the redemptive energy of fellow feeling.