Elie Wiesel will speak in Cornell's Bailey Hall April 29 at 6 p.m. Imprisoned in the Nazi death camps Auschwitz and Buchenwald at age 15, Wiesel survived to write about the horrific experience in such books as "Night." Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for his efforts to rout human rights abuses around the world.

Tickets for Wiesel's talk are free from the Willard Straight Hall ticket office and the Clinton House box office. Doors open at 5 p.m. and tickets guarantee a seat until 5:50 p.m.

Wiesel's vigorous defense of human rights and peace worldwide has also earned him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal, the Medal of Liberty Award, and the rank of Grand Officer in the French Legion of Honor. He was appointed chair of the President's Commission on the Holocaust by Jimmy Carter and became founding chair of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.

Wiesel has been a professor at Boston University since 1976 and a faculty member in its religion and philosophy departments. Wiesel's more than 50 books -- among them novels, plays, story and essays collections -- have won him numerous awards, including the Prix Médicis for "A Beggar in Jerusalem." His most recent book, "A Mad Desire to Dance," was published last year.

Wiesel and his wife, Marion, are co-founders of the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, which seeks to combat indifference, intolerance and injustice.

His campus visit is sponsored by Cornell Hillel, Cornell University Program Board, Cornell College Republicans and Sigma Phi Society's Oliphant Lecture Series.