The Night isn’t so Still

Though questions abound about whether Elie Wiesel’s Holocaust account is a memoir, a novel, or badly translated (my own feeling: just reissue the Yiddish version and let the chips fall where they may) the ones with the biggest eggs on their faces following Oprah’s pick look to be Bantam Dell. As the NYT’s Edward Wyatt reports, Bantam held the paperback rights to Night since 1982 and had been reprinting at a steady clip — until December, when Farrar, Straus & Giroux (who hold the original rights to the book because one of their imprints, Hill & Wang, published the first English translation) let them know they wouldn’t be renewing the paperback license. And although Bantam had reprinted enough copies to hold until April — when a newly translated edition would be available — now the demand will exceed supply and the book will go out of print rather quicker than expected.

Then again, I suppose Bantam could get the rights to the Yiddish version…

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