Hostage, Elie Wiesel
Hostage, Elie Wiesel
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Hostage

Author: Elie Wiesel, Catherine Temerson

Narrator: Mark Bramhall

Unabridged: 6 hr 52 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/21/2012


Synopsis

From Elie Wiesel, Nobel laureate and author of Night, a charged, deeply moving novel about the legacy of the Holocaust in today’s troubled world and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
            It’s 1975, and Shaltiel Feigenberg—professional storyteller, writer and beloved husband—has been taken hostage: abducted from his home in Brooklyn, blindfolded and tied to a chair in a dark basement. His captors, an Arab and an Italian, don’t explain why the innocent Shaltiel has been chosen, just that his life will be bartered for the freedom of three Palestinian prisoners. As his days of waiting commence, Shaltiel resorts to what he does best, telling stories—to himself and to the men who hold his fate in their hands.
            With beauty and sensitivity, Wiesel builds the world of Shaltiel’s memories, haunted by the Holocaust and a Europe in the midst of radical change. A Communist brother, a childhood spent hiding from the Nazis in a cellar, the kindness of liberating Russian soldiers, the unrest of the 1960s—these are the stories that unfold in Shaltiel’s captivity, as the outside world breathlessly follows his disappearance and the police move toward a final confrontation with his captors.
            Impassioned, provocative and insistently humane, Hostage is both a masterly thriller and a profoundly wise meditation on the power of memory to connect us to the past and our shared need for resolution.

About The Author

ELIE WIESEL was fifteen years old when he was deported to Auschwitz. After the war he became a journalist and writer in Paris, and since then has written more than fifty books, both fiction and nonfiction. His masterwork, Night, was a major best seller when it was republished recently in a new translation. Wiesel has been awarded the United States Congressional Gold Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the French Legion of Honor's Grand-Croix, an honorary knighthood of the British Empire, and, in 1986, the Nobel Peace Prize. Since 1976, he has been the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Clif on October 04, 2016

At this novel's beginning we are introduced to Shaltiel Feigenberg who has been kidnapped and is being held hostage. The year is 1975, and as the story progresses we learn through flashbacks that Shaltiel is a holocaust survivor. Also, the book contains long dialogs between Shaltiel and his captors......more

Goodreads review by Charles on May 06, 2012

Hostage: A Novel by Elie Wiesel Alfred A. Knopf (Random House, Inc.) Originally published in France as Otage by Editions Grasser & Fasquelle, Paris, 2010 North American publishing date - August 2012 ISBN-10: 0307599582 ISBN-13: 978-0307599582 224 pages Genres: Fiction History World War II Holocaust Fictio......more

Goodreads review by Jodi on November 06, 2012

The Hostage is an interesting book. A Holocaust survivor is kidnapped by two Palestinian terrorist sympathizers in a bid to free three Palestinian prisoners. But the prisoner, a storyteller, isn't an ordinary prisoner and he ultimately confuses his captors with stories. While he doesn't make black b......more

Goodreads review by Jae on January 05, 2013

Although this was another very readable book I kept getting this - somewhat annoying - sense that I was missing something. It seemed to be a book without a point, and I kept wondering if the author had some grandiose sense of himself and was laughing at us mere mortals who wouldn't understand some s......more

Goodreads review by Robert on November 18, 2012

Hostage by Elie Wiesel is a short novel that compresses a modern day drama within a much longer history that stretches beyond the Holocaust to the origins of the Jewish faith. The story line is as follows: For scant reason having to do with him as a particular Jew, Shaltiel is kidnapped in New York......more


Quotes

“Wiesel takes us on a journey through dream, memory, and especially storytelling in Hostage . . . He continues to remind us of the brilliant possibilities of the philosophical and political novel.”
                -Starred review, Kirkus
 
“[Wiesel’s] terse first-person, present-tense narrative will hold readers . . . With the intense contemporary action, the prisoner’s memories also bring close the sweep of Jewish history, including persecution and survival . . . Sure to spark discussion about Middle Eastern history and politics.”
                -Booklist
 
“Wiesel takes us into the heart of the [hostage’s] experience: How do we survive in a universe where all logic, all reason, has been stripped away and we are at the mercy of chaotic forces? What is the effect on our humanity?”
-David L. Ulin, Chicago Tribune
 
“The strength of Hostage is Wiesel’s exploration of the psychology of being a hostage, as well as the complex nature of memory and its role in our lives . . . Fans of Wiesel’s strong prose who are looking forward to a return to familiar themes will be gratified.”
-Library Journal