Author Guide · Memoir & Holocaust Literature
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In May 1944 Elie Wiesel, fifteen years old, was deported with his family from Sighet, a town Hungary had annexed four years earlier, to Auschwitz. His mother and his younger sister Tzipora were killed on arrival; his father died in Buchenwald in January 1945, less than three months before American troops reached the camp. Ten years later Wiesel wrote it all down in Yiddish, in a manuscript published in Buenos Aires in 1956; cut and rewritten in French, it became La Nuit (1958), and in English Night (1960). He went on to publish more than fifty books, mostly in French, and in 1986 received the Nobel Peace Prize as a “messenger to mankind”. This guide covers his 13 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 13 key books · 1958–1996 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Elie Wiesel published more than fifty books. His best known is Night (French 1958, English 1960), his account of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, followed by the novels Dawn (1960) and Day (1961), The Testament (1980) and his memoirs All Rivers Run to the Sea (1994) and And the Sea Is Never Full (1996). Start with Night: it is short, and almost everything he wrote afterwards returns to it.
Where to Start with Elie Wiesel
If you want the book everything else starts from
→ Night (1958) — his account of Auschwitz and Buchenwald.
If you want his fiction
→ Dawn (1960) — the second book of the Night trilogy, a survivor ordered to kill.
If you want the Hasidic storyteller
→ Souls on Fire (1972) — portraits of the masters he grew up with.
If you want his whole life
→ All Rivers Run to the Sea (1994) — the first volume of his memoirs, from Sighet to 1969.
13 Elie Wiesel Books, in Order
Night
Wiesel’s account of the year he spent in Auschwitz and Buchenwald with his father, from the deportation of the Jews of Sighet in May 1944 to his father’s death in January 1945 and the liberation of Buchenwald in April. A 245-page Yiddish version appeared in Buenos Aires in 1956; the French La Nuit (1958), with a foreword by François Mauriac, cut it to 178 pages, and Stella Rodway’s English translation followed in 1960. Marion Wiesel’s new translation of 2006 was chosen for Oprah’s Book Club; by 2011 the book had sold six million copies in the United States.
Dawn
Elisha, an eighteen-year-old survivor of Buchenwald, has joined the Jewish underground in British Mandate Palestine and is ordered to execute a captured British officer at dawn, in reprisal for the hanging of one of their fighters. The short novel takes place over the night he waits. Published in French as L’Aube (1960) and in English in 1961.
Day
A survivor working as a journalist in New York is hit by a taxi and, in hospital, has to face the possibility that he did not want to step out of its way. The novel moves between his recovery and memories of the camps and of his family. Published in French as Le Jour (1961) and first in English as The Accident (1962); later editions use the title Day.
The Town Beyond the Wall
Michael, a survivor, slips back across the Iron Curtain to his hometown to find the face he remembers at a window, watching without expression as the town’s Jews were taken away. He is arrested and held in prison, where the novel becomes a study of the indifferent onlooker. Published in French as La Ville de la chance (1962) and in English in 1964; it won the Prix Rivarol in 1963.
The Gates of the Forest
Gregor, a Jewish boy in hiding in wartime Hungary, gives his own name to a stranger who shares his cave in the forest, and later poses as a deaf-mute in a village. The novel is told in four parts named after the seasons and ends after the war among Hasidim in Brooklyn. Published in French as Les Portes de la forêt (1964) and in English in 1966.
A Beggar in Jerusalem
Written after the Six-Day War of June 1967: David, a survivor, waits at the Western Wall among beggars and storytellers for his friend Katriel, missing since the fighting, and past and present run together. Published in French as Le Mendiant de Jérusalem (1968), it won the Prix Médicis that year; the English translation followed in 1970.
Souls on Fire
Portraits of the founders of Hasidism, from the Baal Shem Tov to the Rebbe of Kotzk, retold from the stories Wiesel heard as a child in Sighet, with his own commentary. Published in French as Célébration hassidique and in English in the same year, 1972; the English edition won a National Jewish Book Award.
The Oath
Azriel, the last survivor of a pogrom that destroyed the Jewish community of Kolvillàg, has kept an oath of silence about it for fifty years. When he meets a young man who means to kill himself, he has to decide whether to break it. Published in French as Le Serment de Kolvillàg and in English in 1973.
Messengers of God
A companion to Souls on Fire that turns to the Bible: Adam, Cain and Abel, Abraham and Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and Job, retold through Talmudic and midrashic commentary with his own reflections. Published in French as Célébration biblique (1975) and in English in 1976.
The Testament
Paltiel Kossover, a Yiddish poet who believed in communism, writes his life in a Soviet prison before he is shot in Stalin’s purge of Jewish writers in 1952. Decades later his son Grisha, who cannot speak, receives the testament in Israel. Published in French as Le Testament d’un poète juif assassiné (1980), it won the Prix Livre Inter; the English translation followed in 1981.
The Fifth Son
The son of a survivor, born in America after the war, learns that his father once believed he had killed the SS officer who murdered his first son, Ariel, in the ghetto, and that the officer is alive and prospering in Germany. He sets out to finish what his father began. Published in French as Le Cinquième Fils (1983), it won the Grand Prix de Littérature of the City of Paris; English edition 1985.
All Rivers Run to the Sea
The first volume of his memoirs: childhood and study in Sighet, the camps, the years in a French orphanage after the war, study in Paris, his work as a journalist in Israel, Paris and New York, the struggle to publish Night, and his marriage to Marion Erster Rose in 1969. Published in French as Tous les fleuves vont à la mer (1994) and in English in 1995.
And the Sea Is Never Full
The second volume picks up in 1969 and covers his public life: chairing the President’s Commission on the Holocaust, which led to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, and his campaigns for Soviet Jews and for victims of war and genocide elsewhere. Published in French as Et la mer n’est pas remplie (1996) and in English in 1999.
In What Order to Read Elie Wiesel
Start with Night, then read Dawn and Day: Wiesel himself grouped the three, moving from night to day, and the two novels follow survivors who have the same questions as the boy in Night. They are short and are often sold together in one volume.
After that, publication order works well. The novels of the 1960s and 1970s carry the war into the years after it; Souls on Fire and Messengers of God show the religious tradition the war tried to destroy; and the two volumes of memoirs, read last, fill in what Night left out.
A reading path
1. Night (1958)
2. Dawn (1960)
3. Day (1961)
4. Souls on Fire (1972)
5. All Rivers Run to the Sea (1994)
Everything Else Elie Wiesel Published
Beyond the 13 key books: 29 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Novels
7
7 books · 1987–2010
- 1987Twilighta survivor among the patients of a psychiatric clinic
- 1989The Forgottena survivor losing his memory, and his son
- 1999The Judgesfive plane passengers held by a stranger
- 2003The Time of the Uprooteda refugee’s life from Hungary to New York
- 2006A Mad Desire to Dancea survivor in psychoanalysis
- 2008The Sonderberg Casea young theatre critic and a family secret
- 2010Hostagea storyteller held by terrorists in Brooklyn
Essays, testimony and memoir
10
10 books · 1966–2011
- 1966The Jews of Silenceon Soviet Jews, after a journey to the USSR
- 1968Legends of Our Timestories and memories
- 1970One Generation Afteressays and dialogues
- 1978A Jew Todayessays
- 1985Against Silencecollected speeches and writings
- 1988Evil and Exiledialogues with Michael de Saint Cheron
- 1990From the Kingdom of Memoryreminiscences
- 1995Memoir in Two Voiceswith François Mitterrand
- 2001Conversations with Elie Wieselwith Richard D. Heffner
- 2011Open Hearton facing heart surgery at 82
Portraits, legends and religious writing
7
7 books · 1978–2009
- 1978Four Hasidic Masters and Their Struggle Against Melancholyportraits
- 1981Five Biblical Portraitsportraits
- 1982Somewhere a MasterHasidic portraits
- 1991Sages and Dreamersbiblical, Talmudic and Hasidic portraits
- 1993A Passover Haggadahwith commentary
- 2003Wise Men and Their Talesportraits
- 2009Rashia short life of the medieval commentator
Plays, cantatas and children’s books
5
5 books · 1973–1999
- 1973Ani Maamincantata, music by Darius Milhaud
- 1974Zalmen, or The Madness of Godplay
- 1979The Trial of Godplay
- 1983The Golemillustrated by Mark Podwal
- 1999King Solomon and His Magic Ringchildren’s book, illustrated by Mark Podwal
The years · 1928–2016
Quick facts about Elie Wiesel
- Known for
- Elie Wiesel is known for Night, his account of surviving Auschwitz and Buchenwald as a teenager, and for a lifetime of speaking for Holocaust memory that brought him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.
- 1928
- Born in Sighet, Romania
- 1944
- Deported to Auschwitz with his family
- 1958
- Night
- 1986
- Nobel Peace Prize
- 2016
- Dies in New York, aged 87
- Born
- 30 September 1928, Sighet, Romania (Hungarian from 1940 to 1944)
- Died
- 2 July 2016, Manhattan, New York, aged 87
- Languages
- Wrote Night first in Yiddish, then mostly in French
- Married
- Marion Erster Rose, his translator, in 1969; one son, Elisha
- Taught
- Boston University, Andrew Mellon Professor of the Humanities, from 1976
- Honours
- Nobel Peace Prize (1986); Presidential Medal of Freedom (1992)
- Public role
- Chaired the President’s Commission on the Holocaust, 1978–1986
The red mark is 1958: La Nuit, the French edition of Night.
How Elie Wiesel Writes: Testimony and Silence
Wiesel wrote Night by cutting. The Yiddish manuscript ran to 245 pages in print; in French, with the editor Jérôme Lindon, it came down to 178, and the English edition of 1960 to 116. What is left is short chapters, plain sentences and very few adjectives, with the questions to God left unanswered on the page. Scholars still argue about how to classify the result; Wiesel called it his deposition.
In the novels that followed he kept the same small cast of figures: the survivor, the madman, the stranger, the silent onlooker, the child who asks why. The books are short and built from dialogue and long interior questioning rather than plot, and most take place after the war, in Palestine, Paris, New York or a hometown revisited. He wrote them in French, and from 1969 his wife Marion translated many of them into English.
The other half of his work is the storyteller of Sighet: Hasidic tales, Bible stories and Talmudic legends, retold with commentary, as in Souls on Fire and Messengers of God. They are warmer than the camp books, but ask the same question about faith after catastrophe. For writers who bear witness in the same way, from Primo Levi to Viktor Frankl, see Authors like Elie Wiesel.
Watch
Elie Wiesel on The Open Mind
Richard D. Heffner talks with Wiesel on The Open Mind, taped on 26 October 2001, about the September 11 attacks and what memory asks of us.
Frequently asked questions about Elie Wiesel’s books
How many books did Elie Wiesel write?
More than fifty, published between 1956 and 2012 and written mostly in French: memoirs, novels, plays, essays and portraits of Hasidic, biblical and Talmudic figures. This page covers 13 key books in full and lists the rest below them.
What are Elie Wiesel’s books in order?
By first (French) edition: Night (1958), Dawn (1960), Day (1961), The Town Beyond the Wall (1962), The Gates of the Forest (1964), A Beggar in Jerusalem (1968), Souls on Fire (1972), The Oath (1973), Messengers of God (1975), The Testament (1980), The Fifth Son (1983), All Rivers Run to the Sea (1994) and And the Sea Is Never Full (1996). English editions usually followed one to three years later.
Where should I start with Elie Wiesel?
With Night. It is short, it is the foundation of everything else he wrote, and the later novels and memoirs assume you know it. Follow it with Dawn and Day.
What is Elie Wiesel’s most famous book?
Night, his account of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. It has been translated into some thirty languages, and by 2011 it had sold six million copies in the United States alone, helped by its selection for Oprah’s Book Club in 2006.
Is Night by Elie Wiesel a true story?
Yes. It is based on his own deportation from Sighet in May 1944, the murder of his mother and younger sister at Auschwitz, and his father’s death in Buchenwald in January 1945. It was first written in Yiddish, then rewritten and shortened in French before being translated into English. Because it is shaped like a novel, scholars have long debated whether to call it memoir, testimony or autobiographical fiction; Wiesel described it as his deposition.
What is the Night trilogy?
Night, Dawn and Day, which have been published together in one volume since 1985. Night is his own story; Dawn and Day are short novels about young survivors after the war. Day first appeared in English as The Accident (1962).
What should I read after Night?
Dawn and Day complete the trilogy. All Rivers Run to the Sea, the first volume of his memoirs, gives the fuller story of his life before and after the camps.
Did Elie Wiesel win the Nobel Prize?
Yes, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, “for being a messenger to mankind: his message is one of peace, atonement and dignity”. It was the Peace Prize, not the Prize in Literature. His books also won French prizes, including the Prix Médicis for A Beggar in Jerusalem (1968) and the Prix Livre Inter for The Testament (1980).
What is Elie Wiesel known for?
For Night, and for decades of speaking about the Holocaust and against indifference. He chaired the President’s Commission on the Holocaust from 1978 to 1986, which led to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, and taught at Boston University from 1976.
Did Elie Wiesel write plays as well as novels?
Yes. His plays include Zalmen, or The Madness of God and The Trial of God (1979), and he wrote the text of the cantata Ani Maamin (1973), set to music by Darius Milhaud. He also published essays, dialogues and several volumes of portraits, including Souls on Fire, Messengers of God and Sages and Dreamers.
Did Elie Wiesel write books that were never published in English?
Yes. Some of his French books, such as Célébration talmudique (1991) and Célébration prophétique (1998), have no standard English edition.
In what language did Elie Wiesel write?
His first language was Yiddish, and Night began as a Yiddish manuscript. After the war he learned French in France and wrote most of his books in French; many were translated into English by his wife, Marion Wiesel.
Is Elie Wiesel still alive?
No. He died on 2 July 2016 at his home in Manhattan, aged 87.
Was Elie Wiesel controversial?
In some respects. The scholar Naomi Seidman compared the Yiddish and French versions of Night in 1996 and argued that Wiesel rewrote rather than translated it, replacing the survivor’s anger with questions about God. His positions on Israel also drew criticism, including his 1982 withdrawal, at the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s request, from a conference that was to discuss the Armenian genocide, and a 2014 newspaper advertisement about Hamas and children in the Gaza war.
Footnotes
- Elie Wiesel — Wikipedia
- Night (memoir) — Wikipedia
- Elie Wiesel bibliography — Wikipedia
- Elie Wiesel: Facts — NobelPrize.org
- Elie Wiesel: Acceptance Speech, 1986 — NobelPrize.org
- Conversations with Elie Wiesel — The Open Mind, CUNY TV
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
— Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Oslo (10 December 1986)
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