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The Pianist

By: Wladyslaw Szpilman
Narrated by: Laurence Dobiesz
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Publisher's Summary

The best-selling memoir of a Jewish pianist who survived the war in Warsaw against all odds.

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.

Read by Laurence Dobiesz.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2018 Wladyslaw Szpilman (P)2018 Orion Publishing Group
Entertainment & Celebrities Europe Military 20th Century
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Critic Reviews

"We are drawn in to share his surprise and then disbelief at the horrifying progress of events, all conveyed with an understated intimacy and dailiness that render them painfully close...riveting." (Observer)

"The images drawn are unusually sharp and clear...but its moral tone is even more striking: Szpilman refuses to make a hero or a demon out of anyone." (Literary Review)

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Profile Image for Lyn Bender

Deeply moving

Almost understated. Yet powerful especially in its ending . I found myself weeping quietly. Such incalculable cruelty. Yet so many heroic acts.

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