Primo Levi

'With the moral stamina and intellectual poise of a twentieth-century Titan, this slightly built, dutiful, unassuming chemist set out systematically to remember the German hell on earth, steadfastly to think it through, and then to render it comprehensible in lucid, unpretentious prose. He was profoundly in touch with the minutest workings of the most endearing human events and with the most contemptible. What has survived in Levi's writing isn't just his memory of the unbearable, but also, in The Periodic Table and The Wrench, his delight in what made the world exquisite to him. He was himself a magically endearing man, the most delicately forceful enchanter I've ever known' - Philip Roth.

The true and harrowing account of Primo Levi’s experience at the German concentration camp of Auschwitz and his miraculous survival; hailed by The Times Literary Supplement as a “true work of art, this edition includes an exclusive conversation between the author and Philip Roth.In 1943, Primo Levi, a twenty-five-year-old chemist and “Italian citizen of Jewish race,” was arrested by Italian fascists and deported from his native Turin to Auschwitz. Survival in Auschwitz is Levi’s classic account of his ten months in the German death camp, a harrowing story of systematic cruelty and miraculous endurance. Remarkable for its simplicity, restraint, compassion, and even wit, Survival in Auschwitz remains a lasting testament to the indestructibility of the human spirit.

The Periodic Table by Primo Levi is an impassioned response to the Holocaust: Consisting of 21 short stories, each possessing the name of a chemical element, the collection tells of the author's experiences as a Jewish-Italian chemist before, during, and after Auschwitz in luminous, clear, and unfailingly beautiful prose. It has been named the best science book ever by the Royal Institution of Great Britain, and is considered to be Levi's crowning achievement.

In his final book before his death, Primo Levi returns once more to his time at Auschwitz in a moving meditation on memory, resiliency, and the struggle to comprehend unimaginable tragedy.Drawing on history, philosophy, and his own personal experiences, Levi asks if we have already begun to forget about the Holocaust. His last book before his death, Levi returns to the subject that would define his reputation as a writer and a witness.Levi breaks his book into eight essays, ranging from topics like the unreliability of memory to how violence twists both the victim and the victimizer. He shares how difficult it is for him to tell his experiences with his children and friends. He also debunks the myth that most of the Germans were in the dark about the Final Solution or that Jews never attempted to escape the camps. As the Holocaust recedes into the past and fewer and fewer survivors are left to tell their stories, The Drowned and the Saved is a vital first-person testament.Along with Elie Wiesel and Hannah Arendt, Primo Levi is remembered as one of the most powerful and perceptive writers on the Holocaust and the Jewish experience during World War II. This is an essential book both for students and literary readers. Reading Primo Levi is a lesson in the resiliency of the human spirit.

"La tregua", seguito di "Se questo è un uomo", è considerato da molti il capolavoro di Levi: diario del viaggio verso la libertà dopo l'internamento nel Lager nazista, questo libro, più che una semplice rievocazione biografica, è uno straordinario romanzo picaresco. L'avventura movimentata e struggente tra le rovine dell'Europa liberata - da Auschwitz attraverso la Russia, la Romania, l'Ungheria, l'Austria fino a Torino - si snoda in un itinerario tortuoso, punteggiato di incontri con persone appartenenti a civiltà sconosciute, e vittime della stessa guerra. L'epopea di un'umanità ritrovata dopo il limite estremo dell'orrore e della miseria.

Primo Levi was among the greatest witnesses to twentieth-century atrocity. In this gripping novel, based on a true story, he reveals the extraordinary lives of the Russian, Polish and Jewish partisans trapped behind enemy lines during the Second World War. Wracked by fear, hunger and fierce rivalries, they link up, fall apart, struggle to stay alive, and to sabotage the efforts of the all-powerful German army. A compelling tale of action, resistance and epic adventure, it also reveals Levi's characteristic compassion and deep insight into the moral dilemmas of total war. It ranks alongside THE PERIOD TABLE and IF THIS IS A MAN as one of the rare authentic masterpieces of the 20th century.

Andato in scena al Teatro Carignano di Torino la sera del 18 novembre 1966, nella riduzione dell'autore e di un attore professionista, "Se questo è un uomo" era interpretato da cinquantatre attori di sette nazionalità diverse, guidati dal regista Gianfranco De Bosio, in uno spazio scenico di straordinaria e cupa suggestione ideato da Gianni Polidori.Questo testo conserva intatto il suo vigore morale ed è tuttora un bellissimo esempio di teatro «storico», in cui la storia è non solo dei fatti, ma anche e prima degli uomini e delle loro coscienze umiliate e offese.

In this exuberant and wildly funny novel, Primo Levi celebrates the joys of work and the art of storytelling. The magic is worked through the mesmerizing tales told by Libertini Faussone, a construction worker, and by the narrator, a writer-chemist, who share stories of their adventures. Faussone is a life-loving, self-educated philosopher who has built bridges and towers in India, Africa, Alaska, and Russia. His passion for work and travel shines through his stories--of a monkey who wanted to be a man, of a magnificent machine that caught stardust, and of a first love, a girl who drove a bulldozer. The writer-chemist, himself a rigger of words and molecules, listens, patient and amused, and responds with his own fascinating stories and reflections on the similar joys of labor, both physical and intellectual.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,800 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

«Tuve la suerte de no ser deportado a Auschwitz hasta 1944, después de que el gobierno alemán hubiera decidido, a causa de la escasez creciente de mano de obra, prolongar la vida media de los prisioneros que iba a eliminar». Así comienza Si esto es un hombre, libro que inaugura la trilogía que Primo Levi dedicó a los campos de exterminio nazis. Crónica del horror cotidiano, el libro describe en el lenguaje mesurado y sobrio del testigo la espera de la nada, la privación cotidiana, el olvido de la condición humana de los prisioneros. Completan la Trilogía de Auschwitz dos obras posteriores: La tregua (1963), relato picaresco de las tribulaciones de un grupo de italianos, liberados de los campos nazis, que recorren durante meses los caminos de Europa central en compañía del Ejército Rojo, y Los hundidos y los salvados (1986), un ensayo en el que Primo Levi trata de comprender, a partir del ejemplo de los campos nazis, las condiciones y circunstancias que permiten la degradación del ser humano. «El descubrimiento inaudito que Levi realizó en Auschwitz se refiere a una materia que resulta refractaria a cualquier intento de determinar la responsabilidad […] El testigo da testimonio a favor de la verdad y la justicia, pero […] los verdaderos testigos (martis, en griego) son los que no han testimoniado ni hubieran podido hacerlo.» Giogio Agamben, Lo que queda de Auschwitz (1999).

Primo Levi was one of the most astonishing voices to emerge from the twentieth century: a man who survived one of the ugliest times in history, yet who was able to describe his own Auschwitz experience with an unaffected tenderness. Levi was a master storyteller but he did not write fairytales. These stories are an elegy to the human figures who stood out against the tragic background of Auschwitz, 'the ones in whom I had recognized the will and capacity to react, and hence a rudiment of virtue'. Each centres on an individual who - whether it be through a juggling trick, a slice of apple or a letter - discovers one of the 'bizarre, marginal moments of reprieve'.The English edition includes just one section of the three originally published in Italian under the title 'Lilít', tales from the other two sections have been published in 'A Tranquil Star'.

A Tranquil Star , the first new American collection of Primo Levi previously untranslated fiction to appear since 1990, affirms his position as one of the twentieth century's most enduring writers. These seventeen stories, first published in Italian between 1949 and 1986, demonstrate Levi's extraordinary range, taking the reader from the primal resistance of a captured partisan fighter to a middle-aged chemist experimenting with a new paint that wards off evil, to the lustful thoughts of an older man obsessed with a mysterious woman in a seaside villa. In the title story, Levi demonstrates his unerringly tragic understanding of the fragility of the universe through the tale of a pensive astronomer, terrified by the possibility that a long-dormant star might explode and reduce the entire planet to vapor. This remarkable new collection affirms Italo Calvino's conviction that Levi was "one of the most important and gifted writers of our time."

'Back, away from here, drowned people, go. I haven't stolen anyone's place' A selection of poetry from the author of If this is a Man and The Periodic Table.Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

I mnemagoghiCensura in Bitinia Il VersificatoreAngelica Farfalla «Cladonia rapida»L'ordine a buon mercato L'amico dell'uomo Alcune applicazioni del Mimete VersaminaLa bella addormentata nel frigoLa misura della bellezza Quaestio de CentaurisPieno impiegoIl sesto giornoTrattamento di quiescenza

While in a Russian-administered holding camp in Katowice, Poland, in 1945, Primo Levi was asked to provide a report on living conditions in Auschwitz. Published the following year, it was then forgotten, and has until now remained unknown to a wider public.Dating from the weeks and months immediately after the war, Auschwitz Report represents a fascinating and unusual return to the very earliest phase of Holocaust testimony. It details the author’s deportation to Auschwitz, selections for work and extermination, everyday life in the camp, and the organization and working of the gas chambers. It constitutes Levi’s first, astonishingly lucid attempts to come to terms with the raw horror of events that would drive him to create some of the greatest works of twentieth-century literature and testimony. Auschwitz Report is a major literary and historical discovery.

Levi writes on a variety of subjects, always of interest, always lucid, and always literary

Em 1945, no rescaldo do fim da Guerra e da libertação dos campos de concentração pelas forças aliadas, o exército soviético pediu a Primo Levi e a Leonardo de Benedetti, seu companheiro de campo, que redigissem uma relação detalhada das condições de vida nos Lager. O resultado foi um dos primeiros relatórios alguma vez realizados sobre os campos de extermínio. Chocante pela objectividade e detalhe, tocante pela precoce e indignada lucidez, é um testemunho extraordinário daquela que viria a ser uma das vozes mais relevantes da antologia de memórias sobre o Holocausto. Assim foi Auschwitz recolhe esse relatório e vários outros textos de Primo Levi – inéditos até hoje - sobre a experiência colectiva do Holocausto, compondo um mosaico de memórias e reflexões críticas de inestimável valor histórico e humano, tão relevantes hoje, 70 anos volvidos sobre o fim da Segunda Guerra, como no tempo em que foram escritos.

Auschwitz è stato l’alfa e l’omega dell’opera di Primo Levi: l’alfa nel 1947 con Se questo è un uomo; l’omega quarant’anni più tardi con il suo ultimo libro, I sommersi e i salvati. Levi, però, non ha smesso mai di raccontare il Lager, e di indagarlo nell’atto stesso di raccontarlo.Costruito dal Centro internazionale di studi Primo Levi, Auschwitz, città tranquilla ci offre dieci suoi testi narrativi, incorniciati da due poesie: dodici punti di vista, inaspettati e avvincenti, sulla maggiore tragedia collettiva del Novecento.Nel segno di un paradossale titolo d’autore, la «città tranquilla» del campo di sterminio si apre, in questa antologia, in ogni direzione: quella fantastica, nel trittico di racconti distopici e «tedeschi» costituito da Angelica Farfalla, Versamina e La bella addormentata nel frigo; quella autobiografica, con un Primo Levi che si ripresenta in divisa zebrata con un «Me, mi conoscete» (Capaneo), raccontandoci le sue trovate per sopravvivere alla fame (Cerio) e l’incontro, a vent’anni di distanza, con uno che stava «dall’altra parte» (Vanadio). Puntano, invece, all’oggi soprattutto tre testi: Il re dei Giudei, in cui Levi delinea per la prima volta in dettaglio la «zona grigia»; Forza maggiore, il cui titolo corrisponde in maniera letteralmente schiacciante all’episodio narrato; infine, Canto dei morti invano, catalogo che Levi ha compilato nel 1985 e che il mondo contemporaneo non smette di aggiornare.

With the publication of The Periodic Table on 1984, Primo Levi became one of America’s most beloved writers. This new collection of his stories and essays reveals the full imaginative range of this great Italian writer. Most of the stories are science fiction and fantasy, combining Levi’s love for science with his keen perception of human nature. The essays, originally written for the Italian newspaper La Stampa, cover a broad range of his interests, from art and literature to politics and current affairs. Levi’s quick wit and humanity shine through in these gemlike pieces.

Poems deal with the experiences of concentration camp prisoners, and nature, science, and chess

The Sixth Day and Other Tales is a wonderful collection of short fantasy tales by Primo Levi. These works of supreme imagination demonstrate the breadth of Levi's graceful writing, extraordinary wit and keen scientific mind, as they explore the evolution of our technological culture—its effects on our daily lives, on our emotions, on our sex lives and on our children. Brilliantly conceived, Levi's tales reflect his search for a more perfect world—one without sorrow or pain, greed and murder. Keeping a focus on scientific advancements, Levi conjures up remarkable new machines, including one that can duplicate anything, even human beings; another that feeds the hungry by dropping milk into gigantic pits; and a drug that converts all pain into pleasure. In the title story, Levi portrays a world assembled by a scientific committee, replacing the biblical creator, and his panel of experts wildly debates the most efficient body for humans—eliminating fish and bird bodies only at the end of a fierce battle. Throughout, Levi's stories—sometimes extremely funny, sometimes darkly portentous—reveal his concern with how scientific advancement changes the world and its people. These works of fantasy serve as delightful reminders that science must serve human needs and that neither can work without the other. This volume includes all short stories from Storie Naturali and part of those published in Vizio di forma.

Whether describing the most beautiful poem ever composed or an invention gone horribly wrong, this title features eight stories that open up a rich, fantastical world of wonder, adventure and cruel twists of fate, where nothing is as it seems. It includes: 'The Magic Paint', 'The Death of Marinese', 'Censorship in Bitinia', and 'Knall'.

A New York Times Notable Book of the YearNamed one of the Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post and Library JournalA Holiday Gift Guide Selection in the San Francisco Chronicle and NewsdayA New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Selection The Complete Works of Primo Levi , which includes seminal works like If This Is a Man and The Periodic Table , finally gathers all fourteen of Levi’s books―memoirs, essays, poetry, commentary, and fiction―into three slipcased volumes. Primo Levi, the Italian-born chemist once described by Philip Roth as that “quicksilver little woodland creature enlivened by the forest’s most astute intelligence,” has largely been considered a heroic figure in the annals of twentieth-century literature for If This Is a Man , his haunting account of Auschwitz. Yet Levi’s body of work extends considerably beyond his experience as a survivor. Now, the transformation of Levi from Holocaust memoirist to one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers culminates in this publication of The Complete Works of Primo Levi . This magisterial collection finally gathers all of Levi’s fourteen books―memoirs, essays, poetry, and fiction―into three slip-cased volumes. Thirteen of the books feature new translations, and the other is newly revised by the original translator. Nobel laureate Toni Morrison introduces Levi’s writing as a “triumph of human identity and worth over the pathology of human destruction.” The appearance of this historic publication will occasion a major reappraisal of “one of the most valuable writers of our time” (Alfred Kazin). The Complete Works of Primo Levi features all new translations The Periodic Table, The Drowned and the Saved, The Truce, Natural Histories, Flaw of Form, The Wrench, Lilith, Other People’s Trades , and If Not Now, When? ―as well as all of Levi’s poems, essays, and other nonfiction work, some of which have never appeared before in English.

Vizio di forma è la seconda raccolta di racconti fanta-tecnologici e fanta-biologici di Primo Levi; a differenza di Storie naturali, pubblicato cinque anni prima sotto pseudonimo, porta il suo nome in copertina. I racconti sono venti, scritti tra il 1968 e il 1970. Diamo qui il risvolto della prima edizione, uscita nel 1971 da Einaudi nella collana «I coralli»: è anonimo, ma lo si può attribuire con ottima probabilità all’autore. Di seguito offriamo un testo firmato Primo Levi: la parte conclusiva della Lettera 1987 indirizzata all’editore in occasione di una ristampa del volume, pubblicata poche settimane prima della sua scomparsa.

À la faveur d’une approche anthropologique des comportements en vigueur dans les camps nazis, Primo Levi reprend, en les élargissant, les thèmes déjà abordés dans l’essentiel de ses écrits. Il insiste notamment sur la différence entre l’œuvre du témoin et celle de l’écrivain. L’auteur de Si c’est un homme nous offre une leçon exemplaire de mémoire et de lucidité.

Un canguro che partecipa a una cena della ricca borghesia, un extraterrestre che intervista un passante, due abitanti di un mondo bidimensionale, distruttori apparsi dal nulla che disfano un treno in una notte, un impiegato che per lavoro assegna cause di morte, una ragazza a cui spuntano le ali.Sono questi alcuni dei protagonisti del libro di racconti di Primo Levi che comprende storie autobiografiche ambientate nel Lager, racconti fantastici che mostrano invece un lato inconsueto della vena narrativa dello scrittore, racconti di atmosfera onirico-kafkiana, e anche racconti di animali costruiti come apologhi morali.Un doppio passo che attraversa sia i piú inquietanti lati oscuri dell'animo umano, sia i meccanismi combinatori della natura osservati con distaccata, ma divertita ironia.Nella Postfazione Marco Belpoliti ripercorre le ragioni di questo libro in fieri interrotto dalla morte dello scrittore, consegnando al lettore un'opera che conferma la grandezza di Levi nell'arte del racconto.

Here is a collection of writings that Primo Levi considered to be essential readings.

«Chi non ha mai scritto versi?... Anch’io, ad intervalli regolari, “ad ora incerta”, ho ceduto alla spinta: a quanto pare, è inscritta nel nostro patrimonio genetico». In realtà, il fare poesia non è stato in Primo Levi un’attività marginale o minore; egli stesso ci racconta come, scampato al Lager, gli fosse venuto spontaneo fissare la tragedia di Auschwitz nei versi che poi avrebbero aperto Se questo è un uomo: «Voi che vivete sicuri / Nelle vostre tiepide case...». Nei testi poetici raccolti in questo volume ritroviamo, come ha osservato Giovanni Raboni, «lo stesso acume morale, la stessa forza di memoria, ammonimento e pietà che rendono sostanziosa, così giusta, così naturalmente memorabile la sua prosa... In Levi lo scatto, l’impulso iniziale di ogni singola poesia nasce dalla ragione, dalla lettura morale della realtà, da quella capacità di capire la propria sofferenza e la propria indignazione come patrimonio comune a tutti gli uomini, che formano la peculiarità e l’insostituibilità della sua prosa».

Il lettore potrà seguire, lungo un percorso coerente, lo sviluppo narrativo e stilistico dell'autore. In questo volume si intrecciano storie autobiografiche ambientate nel Lager, racconti fantastici, racconti di atmosfera onirico-kafkiana, racconti di animali costruiti come apologhi morali; in tutti ritroviamo la semplicità tranquilla e straziata dell'autore, la sua arte inimitabile di raccontare in modo brioso e vivace.

A highly educated Jewish Italian, Primo Levi achieved world-wide fame with his first book, If This is a Man: an objective account of his struggle for survival following imprisonment in Auschwitz in 1943. Taken from his great work The Periodic Table, these three stories describe his training as a chemist in wartime Turin against a backdrop of growing anti-Semitism.