Elie Wiesel was just 15 years old when he and his family were deported to Auschwitz concentration camp. He and his father were then later transported to Buchenwald. Only he and two older sisters survived. Following the end of World War II, Wiesel moved to Paris to study and later became a journalist. Nearly ten years after the war had ended, Wiesel was persuaded by French writer Francois Mauriac to write about his personal experience in the concentration camps. The result was his acclaimed memoir Night, which has sold over 6 million copies in the US alone and has been translated into more than thirty languages. Wiesel is the author of over fifty books of both fiction and nonfiction, and since 1976 has been the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University. He had previously taught at City University in New York and was a visiting scholar at Yale University. Wiesel is a frequent speaker on the subject of the Holocaust and has been actively involved in fighting intolerance and human rights abuses around the world.

Wiesel has received numerous awards for his literary and human rights activities including the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Grand-Croix in the French Legion of Honor and the National Humanities Medal. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, and soon after established with his wife Marion, The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity that fights indifference, intolerance and injustice.