''The Forgotten'' (French: ''L'oublié'' "the forgotten one") is a novel by

Elie Wiesel Elie Wiesel (, born Eliezer Wiesel ''Eliezer Vizel''; September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Peace Prize, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored Elie Wiesel b ...

, published in 1992 in French. It follows two men, Elhanan Rosenbaum, and his son Malkiel. Elhanan is suffering from an incurable disease that causes him to lose his memory slowly, something like

amnesia Amnesia is a deficit in memory caused by brain damage or disease,Gazzaniga, M., Ivry, R., & Mangun, G. (2009) Cognitive Neuroscience: The biology of the mind. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. but it can also be caused temporarily by the use ...

. Elhanan tells Malkiel the story of his past before he forgets it all. Malkiel is compelled to go to the village in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

where his father failed to stop a crime from occurring, a memory that continues to haunt him. Malkiel encounters the truth about his father and attempts to deal with the past.Sanford V. Sternlicht Student Companion to Elie Wiesel 2003 -0313325308 - Page 97 "The Testament, The Fifth Son, and The Forgotten represent a chronological and thematic change in what might be called Elie Wiesel's multivolume epic of the Holocaust. With the advent of the 1970s and in these novels, Wiesel turns his attention to "the birth and growth of the second generation of survivors" (D. Stern 1990, 63) as well as to the cold war and the plight of Jews in the Soviet Union."

References

1992 American novels Novels set in Romania French-language novels Novels by Elie Wiesel {{1990s-novel-stub