Yesterday, Oprah Winfrey announced her next Book Club selection: Night, the winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize, written by Elie Wiesel, who wrote of his experiences during the Holocaust. In her statement, made on the Martin Luther King holiday, Winfrey said, “Like Dr. King, I have a dream of my own too, that the powerful message of this little book would be engraved on every human heart and will never be forgotten again.” She believes that the book "should be required reading for all humanity.” The edition of Night selected by Winfrey is a new translation by Marion Wiesel, the author's wife and longtime translator.
Winfrey also announced her plans to travel with Wiesel to Auschwitz next month and that the trip will be featured on her show. Auschwitz and Buchenwald are the concentration camps where Wiesel and his family were imprisoned during World War II and where his parents and sister died. She also announced a national high school essay contest based on Wiesel's book. The 50 winners of the contest will be flown to Chicago in February to meet the author.
In her announcement, Winfrey did not refer to the controversy surrounding her previous book club selection, A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. TheSmokingGun.com and other news agencies have questioned whether certain key points in Frey's book happened as he reported them.
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