And the Sea Is Never Full: Memoirs, 1969-

And the Sea Is Never Full is Elie Wiesel's memoir of the period between 1969 and the present. Wiesel, an esteemed writer (his Night is among the greatest memoirs of the Holocaust) and political activist, begins the book remembering a challenge given to himself at age 40: "I will become militant. I will teach, share, bear witness. I will reveal and try to mitigate the victims' solitude." He defends dissidents in the Soviet Union; draws attention to the atrocities of Cambodia and Bosnia; and fights apartheid in South Africa. He attacks Holocaust deniers, stands with Lech Walesa in Poland, visits Albania as a representative of President Clinton, and wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Wiesel's tragic boyhood compelled him to work very hard to love the world. He has learned to do so, and this memoir, like all of his best writing, teaches its reader to love the world while looking directly at its greatest terrors. --Michael Joseph Gross