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`Night' Next on Chicago's Reading List
Library program chooses Elie Wiesel story of survival in Nazi death camp
The Chicago Tribune reports that Night, the autobiographical novel of Elie Wiesel's horrific experiences in the Nazi death camps during World War II, will be the next book to be read collectively by area residents. After the city's success with To Kill a Mockingbird last fall, residents recommended more than 100 books, mostly novels, to the committee of librarians and other experts picking the follow-up book. The choice came down to two finalists, but it took the chairmen of the committee weeks to settle on "Night. The runner-up was Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea.Wiesel's stark evocation of the Holocaust is the second book selected by the Chicago Public Library for its One Book, One Chicago program, which kicked off last year with Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Tens of thousands of residents read Lee's classic novel and then gathered to discuss it with each other in a collaboration that drew national attention. A similar response is expected this spring with Night, and local bookstores and libraries are set to begin stocking up on the book in coming days.
Wiesel, 73, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, will come to Chicago on April 17 to take part in the weeklong series of discussions, lectures and other programs that will be held in connection with his novel. Lee did not participate in last fall's "Mockingbird" programs. Night, initially published in French in 1958, has been translated into more than 30 languages. Since its publication, Wiesel has written 40 more books on Judaism, the Holocaust and the responsibility to fight oppression and genocide. Born on Sept. 30, 1928, in what is now Romania, Wiesel was deported to Auschwitz in 1944.
In the book, he writes: "Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. ... Never shall I forget those moments, which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never."
"Living in a world where we're dealing with terrorism, racism, anti-Semitism, it's important to be aware that the Holocaust is not just a word to be tossed around for every little annoyance. It's the epitome of evil in the world," said Wiesel, who lives in New York and is a humanities professor at Boston University, travels widely lecturing on the Holocaust and other genocides, and has been a frequent visitor to Chicago.
The idea of having a city read and discuss the same book began in Seattle in 1998 and was picked up by Buffalo and Rochester, N.Y. In instituting the program last year, Chicago became the biggest city to adopt the initiative and helped spark similar efforts in about 40 different cities across the nation.