The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
  • Published: 2 February 2009
  • ISBN: 9781862305274
  • Imprint: Definitions
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $19.99

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

Formats & editions
Paperback
30 Aug 2022
Paperback
3 Nov 2014
Paperback
1 Aug 2012
Paperback
2 Feb 2009
EBook
1 Jun 2010
Audiobook
6 Oct 2016
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A tie-in edition of this best-selling book, to coincide with the release of the blockbuster film.

Lines may divide us, but hope will unite us . . .

Nine-year-old Bruno knows nothing of the Final Solution and the Holocaust. He is oblivious to the appalling cruelties being inflicted on the people of Europe by his country. All he knows is that he has been moved from a comfortable home in Berlin to a house in a desolate area where there is nothing to do and no one to play with. Until he meets Shmuel, a boy who lives a strange parallel existence on the other side of the adjoining wire fence and who, like the other people there, wears a uniform of striped pyjamas.

Bruno's friendship with Shmuel will take him from innocence to revelation. And in exploring what he is unwittingly a part of, he will inevitably become subsumed by the terrible process.
  • Published: 2 February 2009
  • ISBN: 9781862305274
  • Imprint: Definitions
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $19.99
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About the author

John Boyne

John Boyne was born in Ireland in 1971. He is the author of eleven novels for adults, six for younger readers and a collection of short stories. Perhaps best known for his 2006 multi-award-winning book The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, John’s other novels, notably The Absolutist and A History of Loneliness, have been widely praised and are international bestsellers. Most recently, The Heart's Invisible Furies was a Richard & Judy Bookclub word-of-mouth bestseller, and A Ladder to the Sky was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award in association with Listowel Writers’ Week.

His novels are published in over fifty languages.

portrait photo of John Boyne

Also by John Boyne

Fire
The Heart's Invisible Furies
Water
Earth
The Dog Who Danced on the Moon
All The Broken Places
The Echo Chamber
See all

Praise for The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

An account of a dreadful episode, short on actual horror but packed with overtones that remain in the imagination. Plainly and sometimes archly written, it stays just ahead of its readers before delivering its killer punch in the final pages

Nick Tucker, Independent

A small wonder of a book. Bruno's education is conducted slowly, through a series of fleeting social encounters rather than by plunging him into a nightmare landscape

Guardian

An extraordinary tale of friendship and the horrors of war seen thorugh the eyes of two young boys, it's stirring stuff. Raw literary talent at its best. More please!

Irish Independent

Quite impossible to put down, this is the rare kind of book that doesn't leave your head for days. Word of mouth should be strong and this has the potential to cross over to an adult audience. A unique and captivating novel, which I believe deserves huge success

Becky Stadwick, The Bookseller

Brilliantly written, superbly conceived novel, ending with words as bleakly ambiguous as any I have ever read. Boyne's ability to lead us on with crystal clear prose so that we unthinkingly fall into the elephant trap reminds me irresistably of another Irishman - Jonathan Swift

Dennis Hamley, The School Librarian
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