Open heart

After years of health problems, but none with his heart, the author, at age eighty-two, was told that he needed immediate surgery to clear his blocked arteries. On what he knew might very well be his deathbed, he reflected on his many losses and accomplishments, and on all that remained to be done....

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Wiesel, Elie, 1928-2016 (Author)
Other Authors: Wiesel, Marion (Translator)
Format: Books Print Book
Language:English
French
Published: New York : Schocken Books, 2015.
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Summary:After years of health problems, but none with his heart, the author, at age eighty-two, was told that he needed immediate surgery to clear his blocked arteries. On what he knew might very well be his deathbed, he reflected on his many losses and accomplishments, and on all that remained to be done. Fortunately, he survived the life-threatening heart surgery to turn those reflections into a book which discusses his affection for his family both departed and still living, his aspirations for his writing, and his hope that he improved the world. Facing his own mortality, the author reflects back on his life. Emotions, images, faces and questions flash through his mind. His family before and during the unspeakable Event. The gifts of marriage and children and grandchildren that followed. In his writing, in his teaching, in his public life, has he done enough for memory and the survivors? His ongoing questioning of God, where has it led? Is there hope for mankind? Here the world's tireless ambassador of tolerance and justice has given us this account of hope and despair, an exploration of the love, regrets and abiding faith.
Item Description:Originally published in France as Coeur ouvert in 2011 ; this translation originally published by Alfred A. Knopf, in 2012.
Physical Description:96 pages ; 20 cm
ISBN:9780805212587
0805212582
Author Notes:Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel was born in Sighet, Romania on September 30, 1928. In 1944, he and his family were deported along with other Jews to the Nazi death camp Auschwitz. His mother and his younger sister died there. He loaded stones onto railway cars in a labor camp called Buna before being sent to Buchenwald, where his father died. He was liberated by the United States Third Army on April 11, 1945. After the war ended, he learned that his two older sisters had also survived. He was placed on a train of 400 orphans that was headed to France, where he was assigned to a home in Normandy under the care of a Jewish organization.

He was educated at the Sorbonne and supported himself as a tutor, a Hebrew teacher and a translator. He started writing for the French newspaper L'Arche. In 1948, L'Arche sent him to Israel to report on that newly founded state. He also became the Paris correspondent for the daily Yediot Ahronot. In this capacity, he interviewed the novelist Francois Mauriac, who urged him to write about his war experiences. The result was La Nuit (Night).

After the publication of Night, Wiesel became a writer, literary critic, and journalist. His other books include Dawn, The Accident, The Gates of the Forest, The Jews of Silence: A Personal Report on Soviet Jewry, and Twilight. He received a numerous awards and honors for his literary work including the William and Janice Epstein Fiction Award in 1965, the Jewish Heritage Award in 1966, the Prix Medicis in 1969, and the Prix Livre-International in 1980. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for his work in combating human cruelty and in advocating justice. He had a leading role in the creation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D. C. He died on July 2, 2016 at the age of 87.

(Bowker Author Biography)