After the war, Wiesel made a vow to wait ten years before speaking about his experiences. He wrote Night thanks to the inspiration of a catholic friend, and soon attempted to get it published. However, "They didn't want it. It was too morbid, they said. 'Nobody wants to hear these stories'". For almost three years, it was only picked up by small publishing companies. Finally, it was widely published in New York in 1960. It gained even more fame when Oprah selected it for her book club in 2006. This is how it became the largely famous memoir it is today.
http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/wie0int-3
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10879079/
This is very interesting. I had not thought about the process that Elie Wiesel would have to go through to get the book published. It would be interesting to know why he vowed not to speak of his experiences for 10 years. When he did go to publish it and it was rejected on the basis of being too dark, this shows how much the world was trying to heal from the traumatic war. Only after being selected decades later by a major talk show host did his book gain fame. This says that the world was ready to hear about the past and truly immerse itself in the past, to learn from it and try never to repeat it.
ReplyDelete