A distinguished writer of plays, novels, short stories, non-fiction, and screenplays, Ronald Harwood was also – like the protagonists in his finest works – a survivor. At an age when most writers were living off their royalty checks and playing bridge with their sexagenarian cronies, Harwood won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for “The Pianist” (2002). The story of a brilliant musician, a Polish Jew, who hid from the Nazis during World War II and emerged to enjoy a long life of artistic triumph, “The Pianist” embraced themes close to
