Elie Wiesel

ELIE WIESEL

Date of Birth: September 30, 1928
Birthplace: Sighet, Romania
Current Residence: Boston, MA
Education: Attended Sorbonne, University of Paris, 1948-51.
Profession: Professor in the humanities, Boston University, humanitarian.

To forget nothing, to efface nothing: that is the obsession of survivors; to plead for the dead, to defend their memory and honor. . . So some of us weave these words into tales, stories and pleas for memory and decency. It is all we can do, for the living, and for the dead.
-Elie Wiesel, All Rivers Run to the Sea

When I write, I feel my invisible teachers standing over my shoulder, reading my words and judging their veracity. And while I feel responsible for the living, I feel equally responsible to the dead. Their memory dwells in my memory.
-Elie Wiesel

There is surprisingly little physical horror in his books. It is the mind that is outraged, the spirit that is degraded....He has made the form of the telling his own. The surreal and the supernatural combine abrasively with the harsh fact; the parable, the rabbinic tale support and sometimes substitute for narrative.
-New York Times, December 15, 1970