Evil and Exile: Revised Edition

By Michael de Saint-Cheron, Elie Wiesel, Michael de Saint Cheron

Book Overview

A six-day series of interviews between Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel and French journalist Micha l de Saint Cheron, Evil and Exile probes some of the most crucial and pressing issues facing humankind today. Having survived the unspeakable evil of the Holocaust, Wiesel remained silent for ten years before dedicating his life to the memory of this tragedy, witnessing tirelessly to remind an often indifferent world of its potential for self-destruction. Wiesel offers wise counsel in this volume concerning evil and suffering, life and death, chance and circumstance. Moreover, the dialogue evokes candid and often surprising responses by Wiesel on the Palestinian problem, Judeo-Christian relations, recent changes in the Soviet Union as well as insights into writers such as Kafka, Malraux, Mauriac, and Unamuno.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0268027587
• ISBN13: 9780268027582
• Release Date: March 2000
• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A voice of conscience for the Jewish people, Israel and Mankind

The French journalist Phillippe de Saint- Cheron engages here in a dialogue with Elie Wiesel. Intelligently Saint- Cheron asks Wiesel the most significant, if often painful questions he could ask, regarding the Holocaust( Which Wiesel prefers to call the 'Hurban' , the name given to it by survivors themselves at the time of its happening) and man's inhumanity to man. Wiesel answers a whole range of political , and religious questions in a forthright and non- dogmatic way. Wiesel time and time again resists cliched- formulas his interrogator suggests. Instead Wiesel gives honest, logical, thoughtful and humane answers. When asked for instance about whether he regards his own having been saved as a miracle, Wiesel replies 'no'. He asks how his being saved could be regarded as miracle when so many others were not saved. Wiesel speaks with passion about the commitment to Jewish history and memory. He speaks about the meaning of his role as witness to the greatest disaster the Jewish people have known, and what is arguably the worst manifestion of Evil Humanity has known, the attempt by the Nazis and their helpers to murder every Jew on earth, an attempt which led to the murder of six million people , one fourth of whom were under the age of eighteen. Wiesel speaks also about a wide variety of other human evils and tragedies. He speaks about the contradictory paradoxical character of witnessing , and breaking silence. He speaks about the Evils of apathy and indifference. He calls engagement with fellow human beings, engagement in resisting Evil. He speaks also about his own problematic paradoxical relation to God. This is not an easy book to read emotionally. It focuses on the dark side of human nature, character and history. But the answers given by Wiesel, answers which are as often questions as not, are the answers of a humane, caring voice. There is a certain holiness in the presence of Wiesel and his way of speaking and thinking. Wisdom and courage are a part of this. But so too is his dedication to memory and truth , his love of his own family people and mankind. A great man answers here time and again with question and wonder. Any opportunity to be in his presence, any opportunity to read a book which he is a part of , I consider an honor and a blessing.