Biography Essay

The work of a survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, Elie Wiesel's literature, most of which he wrote in French, is rooted in the horror of the Holocaust and devoted to the examination of the most fundamental moral issues. Although he has depicted events in the lives of those who outlived Hitler's gas chambers, Wiesel's novels, plays, short stories, lectures, and philosophical texts do more than serve as archives for those who suffered or perished and more than attest to the resiliency of the Jewish people. "This is what I demand for literature," .Wiesel once wrote, "a moral dimension. Art for art's sake is gone. . . .Just to write a novel, that's why I survived"" Elsewhere he noted, "I have always felt that words mean responsibility. I try to use them not against the human condition but for humankind; never to create anger but to attenuate anger, not...