Wiesel, Elie, 1928–, American writer, writing in French, b. Sighet, Romania. At 16 he was imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps concentration camp, a detention site outside the normal prison system created for military or political purposes to confine, terrorize, and, in some cases, kill civilians.
..... Click the link for more information. at Auschwitz and Buchenwald, where his family perished. After the war, he studied at the Sorbonne. In the 1950s he was a correspondent for Israeli, American, and French newspapers. After living in France and Israel, he settled in the United States in 1956 and became a citizen in 1963.

Wiesel's novels, plays, retellings of biblical stories, and collections of Hasidic tales have focused on the importance of keeping the memory of the Holocaust Holocaust (hŏl`əkôst', hō`lə–)
..... Click the link for more information. alive. The autobiographical novel Night (1958) recounts the horrors he witnessed as a death camp inmate; it and two subsequent novels about concentration camp survivors, Dawn (1960) and The Accident (1961), comprise the Night Trilogy. Later works include A Jew Today (1978), The Fifth Son (1985), and The Judges (2002). For his efforts on behalf of other oppressed peoples, he won the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize.

Bibliography

See his memoirs All Rivers Run to the Sea (1995) and And the Sea Is Never Full (1999); his Memoir in Two Voices (with F. Mitterrand, 1996); studies by R. M. Brown (1984) and M. Berenbaum (1987).

Wiesel, Elie

orig. Eliezer Wiesel

(born Sept. 30, 1928, Sighet, Rom.) Romanian-born U.S. novelist. Living in a small Hasidic community, Wiesel and his family were deported in 1944 to Auschwitz and then to Buchenwald; his parents and sister were killed. All his works reflect his experiences as a survivor of the Holocaust and his attempt to resolve the ethical torment of why it happened and what it reveals about human nature. They include Night (1958), A Beggar in Jerusalem (1968), The Testament (1980), and The Forgotten (1989). A noted lecturer, he was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize for Peace for his universal condemnation of violence, hatred, and oppression.

Wiesel, (Eliezer) Elie (1928– ) writer; born in Sighet, Romania. When he was 16, the Jews of his town were taken to Nazi concentration camps. The rest of his family died at Auschwitz and Buchenwald, but he managed to survive. After the war he studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and worked for Israeli, American, and French newspapers. He settled in the U.S.A. in 1956. He taught at City College of New York and became professor of humanities at Boston University (1976). His life was devoted to writing and speaking about the Holocaust, with the aim of making sure that it is never forgotten; he was one of the principal forces behind establishing the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. His first novel, Night (1956), was first published in Yiddish, and is based on his experiences in the death camps. Other novels include Dawn (1961) and Jews of Silence (1967). He also wrote plays, retellings of biblical stories, and Hasidic tales. In 1986 he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work as a "messenger to mankind."