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Overview
Night is one of the masterpieces of Holocaust literature. First published in 1958, it is the autobiographical account of an adolescent boy and his father in Auschwitz. Elie Wiesel writes of their battle for survival and of his battle with God for a way to understand the wanton cruelty he witnesses each day. In the short novel Dawn (1960), a young man who has survived World War II and settled in Palestine joins a Jewish underground movement and is commanded to execute a British officer who has been taken hostage. In Day (previously titled The Accident, 1961), Wiesel questions the limits of conscience: Can Holocaust survivors forge a new life despite their memories? Wiesel’s trilogy offers insights on mankind’s attraction to violence and on the temptation of self-destruction.
These three great and compassionate books by the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize are a lasting document of the Holocaust.
Synopsis
Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize
Night is one of the masterpieces of Holocaust literature. First published in 1960, it is the autobiographical account of an adolescent boy and his father in Auschwitz. Wiesel writes of their battle for survival, and of his battle with God for a way to understand the wanton cruelty he witnesses each day.
In the short novel Dawn (1961), a young man who has survived the Second World War and settled in Palestine is apprenticed to a Jewish terrorist gang. Command to execute a British officer who has been taken hostage, the former victim becomes an executioner.
In The Accident, (1962), Wiesel again turns to fiction to question the limits of the spirit and the self: Can Holocaust survivors forge a new life without the memories of the old? As the author writes in his introduction, "In Night it is the 'I' who speaks; in the other two [narratives], it is the 'I' who listens and questions."
Wiesel's trilogy offers meditations on mankind's attraction to violence and on temptation of self-destruction.
A Hill & Wang Teacher's Guide is available for this title.