In this "powerful" (New York Times Book review) collection of personal
essays and landmark speeches by "one of the great writers of our
generation" (New Republic), Elie Wiesel weaves together reminiscences
of his life before the Holocaust, his struggle to find meaning
afterward, and the actions he has taken on behalf of others that have
defined him as a leading advocate of humanity and have earned him the
Nobel Peace Prize.
Here, too, as a tribute to the dead and an exhortation to the living are
landmark speeches, among them his powerful testimony at the Klaus Barbie
trial, his impassioned plea to President Reagan not to visit a German
S.S. cemetery, and the speech he gave in Oslo in acceptance of the Nobel
Peace Prize, in which he voices his hope that "the memory of evil will
serve as a shield against evil."