I have been waiting for years, for centuries. I have waited to rediscover my father. I have waited to meet my brother. I have attempted to live their lives by assuming them as my own. I have said “I” in their stead. Alternately, I have been one or the other. Surely we have had our differences, our quarrels, our conflicts; but the differences have been transformed into renewed ties. Now, more than ever, my love for my father is whole as though he were my son and as though I were his, the one he lost over there, far away.
A sad summing up: I have moved heaven and earth, I have risked damnation and madness by interrogating the memory of the living and the dreams of the dead in order to live the life of those who, near and far, continue to haunt me: but when, yes when, shall I finally begin to live my life, my own?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elie Wiesel is the author of more than
forty books, including his unforgettable
international bestsellers Night and
A Beggar in Jerusalem, winner of the
Prix Médicis. He has been awarded
the Presidential Medal of Freedom,
the United States Congressional
Gold Medal, and the French Legion
of Honor with the rank of Grand
Officer. In 1986, he received the Nobel
Peace Prize. He is Andrew W. Mellon
Professor in the Humanities and University
He lives with his wife, Marion, and
their son, Elisha, in New York City.
BOOKS BY ELIE WIESEL
ALL RIVERS RUN TO THE SEA
This first volume of Wiesel’s memoirs recalls in intimate detail the experiences that shaped his life—from the small Carpathian village where he was born to the horrors of Auschwitz and Buchenwald to his discovery of his calling as a writer and “Messenger to Mankind.”
0-8052-1028-8 Schocken
AND THE SEA IS NEVER FULL
The concluding volume of Wiesel’s memoirs opens in 1969 as the author sets himself a challenge: “I will become militant. I will teach, share, bear witness. I will reveal and try to mitigate the victim’s solitude.” He makes words his weapons, and in these pages we watch as he meets with world leaders, returns to Auschwitz, and travels to regions ruled by war, dictatorship, and racism in order to engage the most pressing issues of our day.
0-679-43917-x Knopf
A BEGGAR IN JERUSALEM
In the days following the Six-Day War, a Holocaust survivor visits the reunited city of Jerusalem. At the Western Wall he encounters the beggars and madmen who congregate there every evening, and who force him to confront the ghosts of his past and his ties to the present.
0-8052-1052-0 Schocken
THE FIFTH SON
When the son of a Holocaust prisoner discovers his brooding father has been haunted by his role in a murder of a brutal S.S. officer just after the war, the son also discovers that the Nazi is still alive. What begins as a quest for his father’s love becomes a reenactment of the past, as the son sets out to complete his father’s act of revenge.
THE FORGOTTEN
A distinguished psychotherapist and Holocaust survivor is losing his memory to an incurable disease. Never having spoken of the war years before, he resolves to tell his son about his past—the heroic parts as well as the parts that fill him with shame—before it is too late.
0-8052-1019-9 Schocken
FROM THE KINGDOM OF MEMORY
The essays and speeches collected here include reminiscences of Wiesel’s life before the Holocaust and his struggle to find meaning afterward, his impassioned testimony at the Klaus Barbie trial, his plea to President Reagan not to visit a German S.S. cemetery, and his speech in acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize.
0-8052-1020-2 Schocken
THE GATES OF THE FOREST
A young Jew hiding from the Nazis in the forests and small towns of Eastern Europe allows another refugee to sacrifice himself in his stead. As he struggles with his guilt, one questions recurs: How to live in a world that God has abandoned?
0-8052-1044-x Schocken
A JEW TODAY
In this powerful collection of essays, letters, and diary entries, Wiesel probes such central moral and political issues as Zionism and the Middle East conflict, anti-Semitism in the former U.S.S.R., the obligations of American Jews toward Israel, and the media’s treatment of the Holocaust.
0-394-74057-2 Vintage
THE TESTAMENT
On August 12, 1952, Russia’s greatest Jewish writers were secretly executed by Stalin. In this novel, poet Paltiel Kossover meets the same fate but, unlike his historical counterparts, he is permitted to leave behind a written testament. Two decades later, Paltiel’s son reads this precious record and finds that it illuminates the shadowed planes of his own life.
THE TOWN BEYOND THE WALL
Based on Wiesel’s own life, this is the story of a young Holocaust survivor who returns to his hometown after the liberation, seeking to understand the mystery of what he calls “the face in the window”—the symbol of those who stood by and watched as innocent men, women, and children were led to the slaughter.
0-8052-1045-8 Schocken
THE TRIAL OF GOD
When three itinerant actors arrive in a small Eastern European village to perform a Purim play for the Jewish community, they are horrified to discover that all but two of the Jewish residents have been murdered in a recent pogrom. The actors decide to stage a mock trial of God, indicting Him for allowing such things to happen to His children.
0-8052-1053-9 Schocken
TWILIGHT
The story of a man whose search for the friend who saved him during the Holocaust leads him to question the very meaning of survival, this novel of memory, loss, and madness resonates with the dramatic upheavals of our century.
0-8052-1058-x Schocken