Dawn [Paperback]

Elie Wiesel (Author), Frances Frenaye (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 21, 2006

"The author…has built knowledge into artistic fiction."--The New York Times Book Review


Elisha is a young Jewish man, a Holocaust survivor, and an Israeli freedom fighter in British-controlled Palestine; John Dawson is the captured English officer he will murder at dawn in retribution for the British execution of a fellow freedom fighter. The night-long wait for morning and death provides Dawn, Elie Wiesel's ever more timely novel, with its harrowingly taut, hour-by-hour narrative. Caught between the manifold horrors of the past and the troubling dilemmas of the present, Elisha wrestles with guilt, ghosts, and ultimately God as he waits for the appointed hour and his act of assassination. Dawn is an eloquent meditation on the compromises, justifications, and sacrifices that human beings make when they murder other human beings.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The anguish and loss of the moral Jew who has placed himself on the other side of the gun"--Commentary

"Shines gemlike with delicate writing,"--Saturday Review

About the Author

Elie Wiesel is the author of more than fifty books, including Night, his harrowing account of his experiences in Nazi concentration camps. The book, first published in 1955, was selected for Oprah’s Book Club in 2006. Wiesel is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, and lives with his family in New York City. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.

Product Details

• Paperback: 81 pages
• Publisher: Hill and Wang; Tra edition (March 21, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809037726
• ISBN-13: 978-0809037728
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #176,000 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #44 in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > Jewish American

More About the Author

Elie Wiesel is the author of more than forty books, including his unforgettable international best sellers Night and A Beggar in Jerusalem, winner of the Prix Médicis. He has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States Congressional Gold Medal, and the French Legion of Honor with the rank of Grand Cross. In 1986, he received the Nobel Peace Prize. He is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and University Professor at Boston University.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent thinking book & totally different from Night, April 30, 2008

By 

Shi-doh! - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dawn (Paperback)

First off, this is not Night 2. I naively expected that when publisher's try to frame them as part of a 'trilogy'. Night is absolutely and without bar one of the most fantastic books I have read in my life.

This is not just another chapter of that. And it is not a sequel. It is an incredibly profound, and beautifully written meditation on the journey of many Holocaust survivors -- but not his. This is a work of complete fiction. Many survivors went to Palestine, and fought the British (not the Arabs) to kick them out and thus be able to establish a free Jewish state.

It is the story of a fictional Elishah (who has remarkably similar childhood and Holocaust experiences to those of Wiesel) who becomes one of these freedom fighters, and is ordered to execute a British officer in retaliation for their hanging one of the rebels. It is an account of the night that Elishah passes, knowing he has to become a murderer in the morning, and all of his internal struggles with that. In a particularly powerful lead up to the end, he realizes the power of hatred, how without hatred, terrorist groups like theirs, and indeed any violence against others is almost impossible. He notes how nations are so adept at teaching their people to hate, and even comes to the point of trying to make himself hate this stranger in order to be able to follow his orders.

EXTREMELY powerful and evocative.

One word of caution -- there is almost no action here. This is a thinking book. If you are not up to the mental effort to think and feel along with him, you will not like it.

4.0 out of 5 stars Angsty and intense, December 18, 2011

By 

Ash Ryan (Salt Lake City, Utah) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dawn (Paperback)

Very well written...almost Dostoevskian, with a similar sort of religious existentialism. Wiesel makes the best argument I've ever heard for the so-called "cycle of violence"---but unfortunately, it's equivocal. The plot involves a distinction between cold-blooded acts of violence and those committed in the heat of the moment, but the theme depends on ignoring not only this distinction but any distinctions among any uses of force whatsoever (most significantly between an aggressor's initiation of force and the victim's retaliatory use of force in self-defense). Still, the story is very suspenseful and makes an excellent read. Three and a half stars.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book/Great Author!, October 20, 2011

By 

Juanita T. Gibson (Charlestown, IN, United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dawn (Paperback)

Bought this for my husband. He has read all of Wiesel's books. They are all gut wrenchingly real. You will enjoy this book. A definite read!