Table of Contents

Childhood, 1

Darkness, 51

God's Suffering: A Commentary, 101

Schooling, 107

Journalist, 159

Traveling, 221

Paris, 245

New York, 279

Writing, 317

Jerusalem, 381


Glossary, 419

Index, 423

About the Author

ELIE WIESEL was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. The author of more than fifty internationally acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction, he was Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and University Professor at Boston University for forty years. Wiesel died in 2016.

Reviews

“This is Elie Wiesel at his best, a highly revealing self-portrait of the man behind the world-famed persona.”
—Herman Woulk

“A biblical-like epic of a great man who has turned genocidal tragedy into a life force for world peace. I should be required reading for membership in the human race.”
—Alan M. Dershowitz

“Immensely moving [and[ unforgettable, [with] the searing intensity of his novels and autobiographical tales . . . Will make you cry, yet somehow leaves you renewed, with a cautious hope for humanity's future.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Wiesel remains unequaled at bringing home the experience of horrific, nullifying disorientation that was the first step in the program of genocide known as the Final Solution.”
—Daphne Merkin, The New York Times Book Review

“Part of the delight of All Rivers lies in witnessing the gradual transformation of the brokenhearted, orphaned young boy into the spirited journalist who longs to embrace the world at large, and who, in time, does.″
—Rebecca Goldstein, Newsday

“Remarkable . . . Wiesel writes with poetic beauty and heart-stopping eloquence.″
—Susan Miron, Miami Herald

“For all those who have never known Elie Wiesel, these memoirs are an introduction to the man, and for many who have met him, there will be discoveries and realizations.″
—Raul Hilberg, Boston Globe

Novelist, Nobel Peace laureate, and Holocaust survivor Wiesel offers here his long-awaited memoirs. He begins with his boyhood in the Carpathian Mountains of Central Europe and his uprooting and transport by cattle car to the barbed wire infernos of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Here Wiesel describes the horror of being among Jews bound for the death camps as the war was drawing to a close. Concluding this portion of the memoir is a moving meditation on the courage to believe when one is in the shadow of the Holocaust. He describes in following chapters his schooling in postwar France, his decision to become a journalist, and his travels to Israel and throughout the world, including a moving return to the Romanian village of his boyhood. At one point in the book, Wiesel reflects on the central dilemma of writing about the Holocaust: mere words cannot portray the tragedy, yet the writer who has experienced it must write so that others will remember. An exquisite book, recommended for all collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 8/95.]‘Mark Weber, Kent State Univ. Lib., Ohio

"This is Elie Wiesel at his best, a highly revealing self-portrait of the man behind the world-famed persona."
-Herman Woulk

"A biblical-like epic of a great man who has turned genocidal tragedy into a life force for world peace. I should be required reading for membership in the human race."
-Alan M. Dershowitz

"Immensely moving [and[ unforgettable, [with] the searing intensity of his novels and autobiographical tales . . . Will make you cry, yet somehow leaves you renewed, with a cautious hope for humanity's future."
-Publishers Weekly

"Wiesel remains unequaled at bringing home the experience of horrific, nullifying disorientation that was the first step in the program of genocide known as the Final Solution."
-Daphne Merkin, The New York Times Book Review

"Part of the delight of All Rivers lies in witnessing the gradual transformation of the brokenhearted, orphaned young boy into the spirited journalist who longs to embrace the world at large, and who, in time, does."
-Rebecca Goldstein, Newsday

"Remarkable . . . Wiesel writes with poetic beauty and heart-stopping eloquence."
-Susan Miron, Miami Herald

"For all those who have never known Elie Wiesel, these memoirs are an introduction to the man, and for many who have met him, there will be discoveries and realizations."
-Raul Hilberg, Boston Globe