Bookplanet: Oprah's book club chooses another memoir, often referred to as a novel

Oprah's Book Club Turns to Elie Wiesel – by EDWARD WYATT

Days after saying that the "underlying message" of a memoir was more important than its truth, Oprah Winfrey announced yesterday that her next book club selection was "Night," the autobiographical account of life in the Nazi death camps by Elie Wiesel , the Nobel Peace Prize winner who has tirelessly campaigned to keep alive the memory of the Holocaust.

In an interview yesterday, Mr. Wiesel said that "Night" is a true account of the horrors that he witnessed as a young man at Auschwitz and Buchenwald, the camps where his mother, sister and father were killed. He said that he and Ms. Winfrey are scheduled to visit Auschwitz together later this month.

Mr. Wiesel will also appear on a segment of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to be taped in February that will feature winners of a national high school essay contest based on the book. In announcing the selection, Ms. Winfrey said the book "should be required reading for all humanity."

The edition of "Night" selected by Ms. Winfrey is a new translation by Marion Wiesel, the author's wife and longtime translator, from the original Yiddish manuscript, which Mr. Wiesel wrote in 1955 and 1956. The new translation is being published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, which owns Hill & Wang, the publisher of the first English-language edition, a 1960 translation from a volume first published in French.

The book includes a new preface by Mr. Wiesel explaining the differences between earlier editions and the new version, which Mr. Wiesel calls "better and closer to the original." Farrar, Straus & Giroux has printed both a hardcover and a paperback version of the new book and is distributing a combined one million copies, said Jeff Seroy, a senior vice president at the publisher.

The selection of such a high-profile memoir seems likely to extend the debate over the nature of memoir and truth that flared last week around Ms. Winfrey's previous book club choice, "A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey. After an investigative Web site reported that substantial parts of Mr. Frey's account were contradicted by the police and legal records, Mr. Frey admitted that he embellished certain parts of his life.

Ms. Winfrey defended him, however, saying that "the underlying message of redemption in James Frey's memoir still resonates with me."

Mr. Wiesel said he had not read Mr. Frey's book and could not comment on the controversy. He acknowledged that some people and institutions, including on occasion The New York Times, have referred to "Night" as a novel, "mainly because of its literary style."

"But it is not a novel at all," he said. "I know the difference," he added, noting that "Night" is the first of his 47 books, several of which are novels. "I make a distinction between what I lived through and what I imagined others to have lived through."

As it is a memoir, he said, "my experiences in the book - A to Z - must be true." He continued: "All the people I describe were with me there. I object angrily if someone mentions it as a novel."