It’s not very often I can say that I’m sorry I missed the contemporaneous contributions to humanity by any particular human being. The recent passing of Elie Wiesel has left me feeling that loss.

The vivid portrayal of Mr. Wiesel’s Second World War atrocities were nothing less than shocking and left me with an urgent need to know more about the boy who survived some of the most inhumane conditions ever perpetrated by man, and the man who endured and grew from those conditions.

Much of the treatment meted from the German SS was, I am sure with good reason, not described in Night. Nonetheless, Elie Wiesel is an author I plan on learning more from — even posthumously.

This edition was translated by the person who knew him best — his loving wife — who lost nothing in translation. I was moved for the entire Jewish populous for their ordeal, but I felt uniquely helpless for the author who found the strength to re-live his pain in order to heal the world.

With intense, gripping narrative, I was unable to put the book down until I was overcome by the need to sleep. But sleep doesn’t come easy with the realization of what humans are capable of doing to each other, and how hard Elie Wiesel worked, through his writings, to change the world — his and ours.

5 stars and I’m looking for more.

Michael Henderson, FL