Kosiński's novels have appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list, and have been translated into over 30 languages, with total sales estimated at 70 million in 1991.
In June 1982, a Village Voice report by Geoffrey Stokes and Eliot Fremont-Smith accused Kosiński of plagiarism, claiming that much of his work was derivative of prewar books unfamiliar to English readers, and that Being There was a plagiarism of Kariera Nikodema Dyzmy — The Career of Nicodemus Dyzma — a 1932 Polish bestseller by Tadeusz Dołęga-Mostowicz. They also alleged Kosiński wrote The Painted Bird in Polish, and had it secretly translated into English. The report claimed that Kosiński's books had actually been ghost-written by "assistant editors", finding stylistic differences among Kosiński's novels. Kosiński, according to them, had depended upon his free-lance editors for "the sort of composition that we usually call writing." American biographer James Sloan notes that New York poet, publisher and translator, George Reavey, claimed to have written The Painted Bird for Kosiński.
Biography:
- The Future Is Ours, Comrade: Conversations with the Russians (1960), published under the pseudonym "Joseph Novak"
- No Third Path (1962), published under the pseudonym "Joseph Novak"
- The Painted Bird (1965)
- The Art of the Self: Essays à propos Steps (1968)
- Steps (1969)
- Being There (1971)
- The Devil Tree (1973, revised & expanded 1982)
- Cockpit (1975)
- Blind Date (1977)
- Passion Play (1979)
- Pinball (1982)
- The Hermit of 69th Street (1988)
- Passing By: Selected Essays, 1962–1991 (1992)