At this novel's beginning we are introduced to Shaltiel Feigenberg who has been kidnapped and is being held hostage. The year is 1975, and as the story progresses we learn through flashbacks that Shaltiel is a holocaust survivor. Also, the book contains long dialogs between Shaltiel and his captors that provides a bit of an insight into to the motives of members of militant political action groups.Shaltiel was snatched off the streets by two members of the Palestinian Revolutionary Action Group,...

Hostage: A Novel by Elie WieselAlfred A. Knopf (Random House, Inc.)Originally published in France as Otage by Editions Grasser & Fasquelle, Paris, 2010North American publishing date - August 2012ISBN-10: 0307599582 ISBN-13: 978-0307599582 224 pagesGenres: Fiction History World War II HolocaustFiction Mystery & Thriller Suspense Elie Wiesel was fifteen when he was deported to Auschwitz. After the war he became a journalist and writer in Paris. Since then he has written more than fifty books, in...

The Hostage is an interesting book. A Holocaust survivor is kidnapped by two Palestinian terrorist sympathizers in a bid to free three Palestinian prisoners. But the prisoner, a storyteller, isn't an ordinary prisoner and he ultimately confuses his captors with stories. While he doesn't make black become white and white black, he does make white and black into gray even for himself. As he tells the stories, he begins to see them through different eyes, the eyes of an adult, not just the child he...

Hostage by Elie Wiesel is a short novel that compresses a modern day drama within a much longer history that stretches beyond the Holocaust to the origins of the Jewish faith. The story line is as follows: For scant reason having to do with him as a particular Jew, Shaltiel is kidnapped in New York city by terrorists and held hostage in the hopes that his captors can effect an exchange--Shaltiel’s freedom for the freedom of three imprisoned Palestinian freedom fighters. The site of his incarcera...

Shaltiel Feigenberg is a middle-aged storyteller in Brooklyn on his way to visit a friend when he is kidnapped by two men seeking the release of three Palestinian prisoners.His four-day confinement is the setting of Elie Wiesel’s latest novel Hostage (Knopf). Although, this being a Wiesel novel, much of the action, as one would expect, takes place inside the protaganist’s head.It is 1975, the middle of a volatile decade. Gerald Ford is in office, the Munich massacre at the Olympics and the Yom K...

Although this was another very readable book I kept getting this - somewhat annoying - sense that I was missing something. It seemed to be a book without a point, and I kept wondering if the author had some grandiose sense of himself and was laughing at us mere mortals who wouldn't understand some supremely important message within it. I have read Wiesel's book "Night" and remember finding it to be a great book - it's been a while so I might need to re-read it as I remember little of it - but I

Apart from reading "Night", I've never explored any other works by Elie Wiesel. Set in 1975, "Hostage" takes place in a basement in New York City. A Jewish man, a Holocaust survivor, who makes his living as a storyteller is kidnapped by two men. The main focus of the book is told to us in a series of flashbacks about the man's childhood, the meeting of his wife, and his older brother's experience in the Soviet Union. Although "Hostage" is a mere 214 pages, I'm not sure it's possible to pick up o...

How ironic that the bookmark I randomly chose from my bookmark box was a photo looking out through an open wall of a tea house onto a well-manicured Japanese garden. I was constantly switching from the constraint, memory, and heady philosophy of the hostage storyteller to the freedom held within that photo. And every time a little "count your blessings" thought ran through my mind. Suffering from a bout of disillusionment with modern fiction, I was looking for a book of substance and masterful w...

In this new novel, Elie Wiesel once again demonstrates the work of memory through the device of storytelling. Set in 1975, Schaltiel Feigenberg, "a discreet man with no status or fortune", is abducted by two revolution-besotted fools, and Arab and an Italian, both sympathetic to Palestinians. Schaltiel, described only as a storyteller, endures his captivity by remembering his past, his family, and his faith. As he puts it, "We’re going to study together, pray together, tell the world about the d...

Hostage © 2012 – FictionBy Elie Wiesel (Jewish-American b-1928) – TerrorismHostage is an excellent novel with the pleasure of utilizing only three characters for some deep drama. Human interaction and emotion rule the day without relying on graphic torture or Hollywood antics.Elie Wiesel is one of only a small handful of writers who could pull this off brilliantly. Being a holocaust survivor himself, as well as actually having endured Auschwitz’s death camp, Elie regrettably knows his material.

Elie Wiesel is one of the few authors who could have written this book so effectively. His use of word, memory and nuanced communications between characters is done so deftly. His message and the way in which he communicates it is pitch perfect. The main character is so interesting and his life is so rich in many ways yet he is the victim of a terrorist act throughout the book. His inner thoughts and musings are a pleasure to read. Some of the parts of this book drag a tad just because it's hard...

If you can read Elie Weisel and not have a tear come to your eye at least a time or two, you need to have an empathy check. Hostage is a lesson in history, philosophy, religion and mysticism loosely held together by the story of a Jewish storyteller held hostage by terrorists. It's a little like fine wine in a crystal goblet, the crystal (read story) is nice but it is the wine (content) that is really important. I would love to have the opportunity to hear Mr. Weisel speak in person, I'll bet he...

Elie Wiesel is definitely one of my top ten most favorite people on this planet. I just think he is amazing. He is one of those rare individuals that has lived through something horrific and managed to not only survive, but to be made wiser from the experience. This is a book you could reread and easily find yourself picking up new things each time. I actually listened to this one while running, which was a bit confusing because the story moves around a lot, but I managed. Very powerful novel wi...

I don’t consider myself to be overly politically correct but am I the only one somewhat offended by the Arab caricature of the Palestinian kidnapper/terrorist? Yes, a blood-thirsty, foaming-at-the mouth fanatic is not my idea of empathy but I suppose that wasn’t what he was going for in this novel. He saves his empathy for a much less obvious representation of the Muslim, an Italian with the extremely Italian name of Luigi. Ahmed is just too Arab and too Muslim to come across as anything other t...

Drawing on his experience as a holocaust survivor Wiesel taps into that part of his life that brought him world wide acclaim with Night. This is an updated version of the hostage scenario he wrote about in Night in which a modern Jewish story teller is held hostage by an Arab and an Italian terrorist in New York City. There are lots of side stories about the hostage's earlier life and also some of the stories he has told to others over the years. This is a very thoughtful book which is centered

Really tried hard to get through it, but finally gave up. Too depressing. Hard to differentiate the voices of the characters in different time periods. Just could not keep going.

An interesting interweaving of stories around the experiences of a Jewish storyteller who is kidnapped by a Palestinian and an Italian. Shaltiel Feigenberg's father had brought him to America to escape a Europe marred by the Holocaust, but the repercussions of the establishment of Israel brought about the situation of Shaltiel's kidnap.During the Second World War Shaltiel survived by being able to win or lose games of chess in the basement of his German protector. In the Brooklyn basement of his...

Beautiful prose, questions the cycle of brutality that continues not only in the Middle East, but in he world as a whole, told from the perspective of a Jewish Storyteller who survived the Holocaust, only to be captured, seemingly at random by two Terrorists, whom Wiesel models both as victims of tragic circumstance and brutality perpetuating itself. A powerful book, which raises a good deal of ethical and moral questions, spanning generations, continents, ideologies, nature versus nurture, reli...

Another powerful story from Elie Wiesel. Mr. Wiesel reminded me that all of us have the means to be storytellers--we just need to remember that not all of our stories are interesting to everyone.