Edward Rothstein. The Lager’s inmates struggle with each other, snitch on each other, fight over rations, cheat the innocent. It is a ‘war of all against all.’ Does great suffering bring great wisdom? Does it lead to sophisticated moral views…
His will to bear witness, and record the hellish particularity of the Holocaust, helped save his life in Auschwitz. It also inspired the writing he will be remembered for. William Dereziewicz. Three volumes, 3,000 pages: The Complete Works of Primo Levi, in…
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Photograph by Irving Penn: "Ballet Society," New York, 1948. Left to right, Corrado Cagli, Vittorio Rieti, Tanaquil Le Clercq and George Balanchine. Copyright @ Conde Nast New York, NY, December 3, 2015 - Book Sheds New Light…
James Marcus. Primo Levi’s literary conquest of America has been slow, sketchy, almost diffident. The English translation of his first book, If This Is a Man, appeared in this country in 1959, twelve years after the publication of the original in Italy,…
Michael Frank “This book is entirely the work of my hands, for I copied it for my own use. I am Nachman, son of Rabbi Samuel Foa. I copied it in the year 5315, when I was 15 years of…
Edward Mendelson. Primo Levi studied chemistry at Turin and worked as a chemist until, at 24, he joined the Italian “partisans” resisting the Nazi occupation of northern Italy in 1943. He was arrested by Italian Fascists and turned over to the…
Gavin Jacobson. Levi's experience as a partisan—and the execution of two teenage boys—showed him humans' capacity for extreme violence. In September 1943, Primo Levi took to the mountains in northwest Italy to escape the Nazis. A keen mountaineer since the…
