The last image, a man standing in front of a mirror, is a literary fragment that still echoes in my mind whenever I think of words that really struck me.

First published in 1956, Night is one of the most uncompromising testimonies of the Holocaust ever written. In spare, unadorned prose, Elie Wiesel recounts his experiences as a teenager in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, tracing the systematic destruction of family, faith, and moral certainty. 

A document of what happens when human beings are reduced to numbers, when witnessing itself becomes a burden, and when survival carries its own ethical weight. It is terrifyingly important as a contribution to literature.