On her show yesterday, Oprah Winfrey announced the selection of Elie Wiesel’s “Night” — his chronicle of Auschwitz, and the first of his more than 40 books — for her Book Club. By Monday night, “Night” was No. 1 on Amazon.com.
In announcing her selection of “Night,” Winfrey referred to the King Day holiday.
“Like Dr. King, I have a dream of my own, too, that the powerful message of this little book would be engraved on every human heart and will never be forgotten again. That you who read this book will feel as I do that these 120 pages . . . should be required reading for all humanity,” she said.
Winfrey also said she plans to travel with Wiesel to Auschwitz next month, and her show will have a high school essay contest on Wiesel’s book. Fifty winners will be flown to Chicago, where her show is based, for a taping with the author, Winfrey said.
In a 2002 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Wiesel recalled that “Night,” written in Yiddish in the 1950s, translated into French and then English, attracted little notice at first. “The English translation came out in 1960, and the first printing was 3,000 copies,” he said. “And it took three years to sell them. Now, I get 100 letters a month from children about the book. And there are many, many million copies in print.”
And in part because of Oprah Winfrey’s act, there will be a million more.
The edition of "Night" selected by Ms. Winfrey is a new translation by Marion Wiesel, the author’s wife and longtime translator, from the original Yiddish manuscript, which Mr. Wiesel wrote in 1955 and 1956. . . . The book includes a new preface by Mr. Wiesel explaining the differences between earlier editions and the new version, which Mr. Wiesel calls "better and closer to the original." Farrar, Straus & Giroux has printed both a hardcover and a paperback version of the new book and is distributing a combined one million copies, said Jeff Seroy, a senior vice president at the publisher.
Oprah’s website has extensive materials devoted to Wiesel and his book, including an excerpt from the book, a discount purchase opportunity, two message boards about the book (one for adults, the other for teens), a site for posting family stories, and more.
What an amazing act of Tikkun Olam by Oprah Winfrey.
