Not since Albert Camus has there been such an eloquent spokesman for
man. --The New York Times Book Review
The publication of Day restores Elie Wiesel's original title to the
novel initially published in English as The Accident and clearly
establishes it as the powerful conclusion to the author's classic
trilogy of Holocaust literature, which includes his memoir Night and
novel Dawn. In Night it is the 'I' who speaks, writes Wiesel. In the
other two, it is the 'I' who listens and questions.
In its opening paragraphs, a successful journalist and Holocaust
survivor steps off a New York City curb and into the path of an oncoming
taxi. Consequently, most of Wiesel's masterful portrayal of one man's
exploration of the historical tragedy that befell him, his family, and
his people transpires in the thoughts, daydreams, and memories of the
novel's narrator. Torn between choosing life or death, Day again and
again returns to the guiding questions that inform Wiesel's trilogy: the
meaning and worth of surviving the annihilation of a race, the effects
of the Holocaust upon the modern character of the Jewish people, and the
loss of one's religious faith in the face of mass murder and human
extermination.
