"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-speaking 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.