I heard Elie Wiesel speak a couple of nights ago at the Dayton Literary Peace Prize award presentation. As I expected, he was incredible. Very life-affirming.
He said that despite writing about hatred and those who hate, he never wants to perpetuate hate with his writing. He also said he naively believed, when first writing his book Night (which took ten years to write!), that writing it would usher in peace. He doesn't think he has yet succeeded because there are still human rights violations being committed around the world.
His mission now, Wiesel said, and he thinks this is the mission of all writers, is to bear witness and tell the stories because in the end, all that is left is the story. It is up to each of us to bear witness and write the story.
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