RaveThe Chicago Tribune...a beautiful, deeply moving memoir ... A central question of Witness is whether the experience of being a witness can be transferred to another person ... But this complex, multilayered book asks many more questions, such as: What does it mean to be a teacher? What does it mean to be a student? How can you lead a moral life? ... Burger gives us a deeper glimpse through private conversations into Wiesel’s self-doubt and his concern that words fail and understandings are flimsy ... Wiesel’s weariness is haunting, terrifying and timely ... But Burger’s honest depiction of doubt—both Wiesel’s and his own—is a great strength of this memoir, and its constant concern with the limited power of the individual is timeless. While Wiesel privately worried about the power of one person’s words in the face of hatred, this book of questions and memories makes a case for the power of teaching, and for words as perhaps the ultimate teachers of how to live.
