Georges Borchardt, a literary agent who arranged for the publication in English of Elie Wiesel’s Holocaust memoir, Night, after it was rejected by 14 American publishers, and who introduced American readers to masters of the avant-garde, like the playwright Samuel Beckett, died on Jan. 18 at his home in Manhattan. He was 97.

Mr. Borchardt had an astute eye for literary talent. At various times, he or the Manhattan agency that he and his wife, Anne, founded in 1967 represented five Nobel laureates, eight Pulitzer Prize-winners, and one statesman, the French president Charles de Gaulle.

About the Night memoir, Mr. Borchardt sent an impassioned pitch to 14 mainstream publishers, praising the book. All rejected it as too bleak, morbid. Finally, in 1959, the small publishing house of Hill & Wang offered $250 for the manuscript. The book originally sold about 1,000 copies. But sales surged after the 1961 trial in Jerusalem of Adolf Eichmann. In time, thousands of schools made Night required reading. By 2020, its worldwide sales were estimated at 14 million.