Jerzy Kosinski is one of the most important and original writers of our times. Passing By serves as his legacy, a collection of writings that answers many questions about his work and offers a revealing and provocative self-portrait by an author whose life was shrouded in enigma.

The man who emerges here has a passion for sport, a quirky sense of fun, an idiosyncratic range of acquaintances stretching from Pope John Paul II to Warren Beatty, and an abiding love of secrets, conundrums, and fantasies. But first and foremost, as he demonstrates in major essays on his novels The Painted Bird and Steps, Kosinski is a powerful, incomparable literary artist.