About+the+Author



Elie Wiesel was born on September 30th, 1928. He grew up in a small-knit Jewish community called Sighet. His family ran a German grocery store. Almost as soon as he could speak, he started studying Hebrew. Growing up his life centered around religious studies, he was interested in mystical tradition and folk tales of Judaism. After World War II he mastered the French language, and studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, he then was a choir master and a teacher of Hebrew. The silenced author wrote down his memories after a long, silent 10 years. He wrote his memories in Yiddish which came out to be a 900 page book, it was called 'Un die welt hot geshvign.' It was published in Argentina, he turned it into a 127 page French book, titled Night. In his time he published 39 books, he got awarded in 1978 by president Jimmy Carter of the US Holocaust Memorial. In 1985 he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Freedom and the Nobel Peace Price.