Elie Wiesel

1
Elie Wiesel

• Night

2
Childhood

• Born September 30, 1928
• Interested in becoming a rabbi
• Disillusioned while a child until the Germans
  invaded

3
After the war

• Wiesel walked out of Buchenwald at age 16
• Lived in a French orphanage for several years
• Reunited with two sisters
• Entered the Sorbonne in 1948

4
Life Calling

• Maintained a personal vow of silence
• Encouraged by Mauriac, a Nobel laureate
• Wiesel finished the first version in 1956

5
Versions of Night

• First version in Yiddish, translated as And the
  World Kept Silent (800 pages)
• Compressed memoir into French autobiographical
  novel, La Nuit, but he had a hard time finding a
  publisher
• Published in US two years later

6
After Night

• Continues to write and lecture today
• Wiesel writes first in French and then his wife
  translates the books into English
• Determined to give meaning to the absurdities of
  the past

7
Literary Style

• Influenced by French existential writers
• Developed a stark and direct writing style
• Expresses himself succinctly as a minimalist

• Addresses moral issues and tries to reconstruct
  hope in humanity
• Themes of guilt, hypocrisy, silence, and apathy
• People are responsible for the moral choices they
  make even in an absurd world

8
To give in is so easy and I dont like the easy
path. Indifference is never an optionMy mantra
has been The opposite of love is not hate but
indifference the opposite of education is not
ignorance but indifference the opposite of
beauty is not ugliness but indifference the
opposite of life is not death but indifference to
life and death. I dont think I could ever
become numb.