Elie Wiesel: Conversations

by Robert Franciosi (Editor), Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel has given hundreds of interviews. Yet his fame as a human rights advocate often directs such conversations toward non-literary issues. Indeed, many of Wiesel's questioners barely address the writer's role that has defined him since the 1950s.

Unlike previous volumes in which he speaks with interviewers, Elie Conversations collects interviews which set in relief the writer at work. This book focuses on Wiesel the literary artist instead of Wiesel the Holocaust survivor or the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Beyond highlighting Wiesel's literary significance, these interviews also correct many faulty assumptions about his achievement. Few American readers know that he writes in French, that he has been favorably compared to André Malraux and Albert Camus. Not many realize that the Holocaust has been the subject of only a few of his forty books. Particularly in his nonfiction, Wiesel's scope is wide, addressing Jewish life in all its religious and historical complexity.

Though most of Wiesel's books do not focus on the Holocaust, they are written against the backdrop of what he has come to term “The Event.” Always, the presence of Auschwitz can be felt, always the author “lives in the shadows of the flames that once illuminated and blinded him.”

These interviews are reminders that the writing life is both solitary and public, interior and social. The writer must venture beyond his study and speak out against the world's traumas and outrages.

Genres: Holocaust, Nonfiction, History, Biography Memoir, Biography, World War II

205 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1991

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book. Great insight from a man who has been through and seen it all. I read this a few days before hearing him speak on the art of reconciliation language. Coupled with the lecture, it really helped me be more concious of the words I use that may offend other people. When he spoke, he talked about developing conversation and unity bewtween the three monotheistic faiths, and the fact that Jews and Christians communicate but tend to leave Muslims out of any healing process. Interesting things to think about.

He adds many sayings and stories from old rabbis, which makes him fun to listen to and read.

[Mark Fallon · Rating 5 out of 5]

The chapters are transcripts of extraordinary conversations between Wiesel and Heffner. The beauty of Wiesel's wisdom touches me every time I read any of his works.

[Theresa Malloy Lemickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a compilation of interviews and conversations between Elie Wiesel and his colleague Richard D. Heffner. The two delve explore topics of power, journalistic integrity, concern for humanity. I especially appreciated Wiesel's belief in bearing witness to tragedy and being there for victims. The trajectory of his journalistic career embodied this, and I think it's something journalists today can continue to practice and strive for in their reporting. I re-read several passages because Wiesel has a beautiful way of seeing the world.

[Alyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good source of opinions straight from the horses mouth, so to speak. Elie Wiesel's conversations with Richard Heffner are edited for the written word. The questions are thoughtful and Wiesel's responses shed light on the character of a very famous but humble man.

[Tracy Schillemore · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was looking for reflections on his experiences with the Holocaust. Althought the book touches on that point in history the book itself is more a commentary on life. Wiesel is a wise man with good insights.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having read quite a few books by the author, including one additional book like this one that was made as a result of a long conversation, I have to say that Elie Wiesel does not come off as personable in these conversations that he does in his own writing.  I'm not sure why that is the case, but it's worth a guess at least.  In his own writings, the author has some kind of story to tell, usually, whether that is the story of his own childhood, a fictional narrative that relates to the Holocaust and its aftermath, narratives about sages and wise men, or in a memoir about a near death experience resulting from heart problems.  In these contexts the author is winsome and if he has a somewhat narrow range he at least handles that range well.  When he is engaged in the sort of conversations that become books, though, we see the weaknesses of Elie Wiesel's approach in his reflexive globalism and his hostility to absolute truth and in his post-millennial optimism and his automatic sympathy for supposed "victims" and a failure to understand how these people can easily become oppressors in turn as has happened in South Africa, among other places.

This book consists of eleven chapters with various interludes that contain smaller fragments of conversations.  The conversations begin with a discussion of the responsibility that people have for others (1), move on to the place of the intellectual in public life (2), and talk about the issues of political correctness (3), where the author's views are somewhat nuanced but ultimately somewhat PC.  The conversation moves to the proper role of the state in the lives of citizens (4), issues of religious, politics, and tolerance (5), and nationalism and upheaval, especially in the post-Communist world (6).  The conversation moves to an anatomy of hate (7), Wiesel's opposition to capital punishment (8), and the issue of the mercy of taking lives (9).  Finally, the conversation closes with a discussion of making ourselves over in whose image (10) as well as the mystic chords of memory (11) that connect people together, after which the book closes with an afterword.  Altogether, the book contains about 175 pages of material whose reception by the reader will likely depend on the extent to which Wiesel's political worldview corresponds with their own.  Admittedly, there are a lot of differences between worldview between myself and Wiesel, so this book was not one that greatly pleased me as a reader.

This book really indicates the problem that results when having a book of conversations.  When the author writes about either his own story, or a story that he has imagined, he has a good enough prose style and a winsome enough approach that he is able to be enjoyed without too much difficulty so long as one has a way of approaching the text.  However, the author's views on political matters are decidedly partisan, and with a bias that I find reprehensible in politics.  The author is distressed that politics are so important and he would appear to rather talk about other subjects, but the way this book is framed, it appears as if the co-author is most interested in showing what Wiesel had to say about questions of policy and geopolitics, and that is precisely where Wiesel has the least to say that is worthwhile to read and pay attention to.  As a person, Wiesel is winsome, as a Holocaust survivor he has a lot of dark tales to tell, but as a political commentator his views are not particularly insightful or worthwhile.  By playing to the author's weaknesses rather than his strengths, this volume is a big disappointment in a little book.

[M. Newman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Based upon conversations between Holocaust survivor, author, college professor and Nobel Prize winner, Elie Wiesel and his long time friend and colleague, Richard D. Heffner, these conversations cover fascinating political and spiritual ground, expounding on many global issues. Although there are references to the Holocaust and World War II II, I would not say that it is a book about those two things, nor is it a biography as the bookshelves/tags describe them. It was, however an extremely interesting book.

[Vanessa Braganza · Rating 5 out of 5]

“How could a man or a woman participate in the killing of ten thousand people a day and not even feel it… It was a parallel universe. When people came there, the killers killed, the victims died, the sky was blue, and somewhere a man who was in charge of the bookkeeping wrote, “Today they killed 10,494.”…Had there been hate, it would not have been possible.”

[Laura S. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Is he really Elie Wiesel?
https://littlegreyrabbit.wordpress.co...

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intense. A lot of life advice.

[LP · Rating 1 out of 5]

Rated "1" for hypocrisy.

http://forward.com/articles/203581/lo...