When eighty-two-year-old Elie Wiesel was told he needed emergency heart surgery he was surprised rather than afraid. His breathing felt normal and he had no chest pain. Flaunting doctor’s orders, he went to his office and lost himself in work–letters and appointments to attend to, and a delegation of Iranian dissidents to see. Later, however, on entering the operation theater, his pessimistic nature took over and his mind was in turmoil: “In front of me, the cemetery; behind me, the garden of my childhood. The future is shrinking; the past is dying.” But Wiesel survived and the result is Open Heart, an absorbing, clear-eyed reflection on his own mortality and a candid account of a life lived.
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