Book Description

On September 23, 1939, Wladyslaw Szpilman played Chopin's Nocturne in C-sharp minor live on the radio as shells exploded outside - so loudly that he couldn't hear his piano. It was the last live music broadcast from Warsaw: That day, a German bomb hit the station, and Polish Radio went off the air.

Though he lost his entire family, Szpilman survived in hiding. In the end, his life was saved by a German officer who heard him play the same Chopin Nocturne on a piano found among the rubble. Written immediately after the war and suppressed for decades, THE PIANIST is a stunning testament to human endurance and the redemptive power of fellow feeling.

About the Author

Władysław "Wladek" Szpilman (5 December 1911 - 6 July 2000) was a Polish pianist and classical composer, of Jewish origin. Szpilman is widely known as the protagonist of the 2002 Roman Polanski film The Pianist, which is based on the book "The Pianist" recounting his survival of the German occupation of Warsaw and the Holocaust.