The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
First sentence
"One afternoon, when Bruno came home from school, he was surprised to find Maria, the family's maid, packing up all his things."...
Description
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a 2006 historical fiction novel by Irish novelist John Boyne. The plot concerns a German boy named Bruno whose father is the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp and Bruno's friendship with a Jewish detainee named Shmuel. As of 2022, the book has sold more than 11 million copies worldwide and has been translated into over 58 languages, making it one of the best-selling books of all time. Boyne wrote the entire first draft in two and a half days, without sleeping much; but also said that he was quite a serious student of Holocaust-related literature for years before the idea for the novel even came to him. The book has received a divided response from critics, with positive reviews praising the story as an effective morality tale.