‘A slim volume of terrifying power’ — The New York Times
Born into a Jewish ghetto in Hungary, Elie Wiesel was fifteen years old when he and his family were deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz and then Buchenwald. Night, translated by Marion Wiesel and published in Penguin Modern Classics with a preface by the author, is his account of what followed: the escalating horrors of the camps, the destruction of his family, and his struggle to retain any sense of humanity, dignity, or faith in a system designed to erase all three. Written with devastating simplicity, it remains one of the most personal, intimate, and poignant records of the Holocaust ever set down. ‘To the best of my knowledge no one has left behind him so moving a record’ wrote Alfred Kazin, while Curt Leviant observed in the Saturday Review that ‘Wiesel has taken his own anguish and imaginatively metamorphosed it into art.’ After the war, Wiesel studied in Paris and worked as a journalist; it was the distinguished French author François Mauriac who persuaded him to write about his experiences in the death camps. The result, first published as La Nuit, has since been translated into more than thirty languages and stands as one of the most important works of the twentieth century — a harrowing yet enduring meditation on the darkest reaches of human nature and the persistence of hope. If you enjoyed Night, you might also like Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.
ISBN 13: 9780140189896
Author: Elie Wiesel
