This was the question that Elie Wiesel asked himself about his memoir Night, which recounts the story of his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp as a young boy. This haunting and impacting piece was my introduction to a genre of non-fiction in high school. Prior to having read this, I mostly enjoyed literature in the form of fiction and drama. I perceived these hypothetical and imagined stories to be a defining element of literature. I felt comfort in being able to escape in these crafted works and would have dreaded the thought of reading something more connected to reality.
I experienced a BIG change of mind when I read Night, nonetheless.
“Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of madness?”
