Jerzy Kosiński was accused of plagiarism and ghostwriting in 1982 and killed himself in 1991 with a plastic bag over his head

Kosiński's The Painted Bird (1965) was banned in Poland until 1989. In June 1982 the Village Voice, in an article by Geoffrey Stokes and Eliot Fremont-Smith, reported that he wrote it in Polish and had it secretly translated, that his later books were ghostwritten by assistant editors, and that his wartime story did not match the novel. It also drew a plagiarism charge over Being There and a 1932 Polish novel^†. In November 1982 John Corry defended him in a 6,000-word New York Times article, arguing a Polish Communist disinformation campaign was behind the claims. In 1999 Laurie Stieber wrote in New York that he had used passages from her letters without asking. In 2000 Eliot Weinberger argued Kosiński was not the author of The Painted Bird. On 3 May 1991 Kosiński, 57, took alcohol and drugs and put a plastic bag over his head. His note read: "I am going to put myself to sleep now for a bit longer than usual. Call it Eternity." His widow Katherina "Kiki" von Fraunhofer-Kosinski (1933 to 2007) gave a collection of his papers that is now at Yale's Beinecke Library. Terms of his will were not found^†.