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at The 92nd Street Y, New York. Supported by The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity
Oct 30, 1980
Professor Wiesel reads from a forthcoming novel, The Testament, which he began during his first visit to the Soviet Union in 1965. The hero or anti-hero is a good (but not great) lesser known Soviet Jewish poet, Paltiel Kossover, who lived through most of the important events of the century. He transmits his testament to his son as the father awaits an executioner’s death. Professor Wiesel also weaves in a letter to a friend, speaking of this novel being more complex than his others; an account of his trip to Cambodia a few months before (published as “Kaddish in Cambodia”); and his reading of Paltiel Kossover’s poems in Yiddish. He ends by having the novel’s hero state: “I lived a communist, and I die a Jew.”
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