Overview

A new edition of Primo Levi's classic memoir of the Holocaust, with an introduction by David Baddiel, author of Jews Don't Count '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... One of the greatest human testaments of the era' Philip Roth 'Levi's voice is especially affecting, so clear, firm and gentle, yet humane and apparently untouched by anger, bitterness or self-pity... If This Is a Man is miraculous, finding the human in every individual who traverses its pages' Philippe Sands 'The death of Primo Levi robs Italy of one of its finest writers... One of the few survivors of the Holocaust to speak of his experiences with a gentle voice' Guardian '[What] gave it such power... was the sheer, unmitigated truth of it; the sense of what a book could achieve in terms of expanding one's own knowledge and understanding at a single sitting... few writers have left such a legacy... A necessary book' Independent

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9780349142869

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Reviews

One of the century's truly necessary books -- Philip Roth One of the greatest human testaments of the era * Scotsman * The death of Primo Levi robs Italy of one of its finest writers . . . One of the few survivors of the Holocaust to speak of his experiences with a gentle voice * Guardian * The death of Primo Levi robs Italy of one of its finest writers...One of the few survivors of the Holocaust to speak of his experiences with a gentle voice * GUARDIAN * A life-changing book. * Daily Express * THE TRUCE: * 'One of the century's truly necessary books.' * Philip Roth * 'One of the greatest human testaments of the era.' *

"The death of Primo Levi robs Italy of one of its finest writers . . . One of the few survivors of the Holocaust to speak of his experiences with a gentle voice * Guardian * Levi's voice is especially affecting, so clear, firm and gentle, yet humane and apparently untouched by anger, bitterness or self-pity. If This Is a Man is miraculous, finding the human in every individual who traverses its pages, whether a Häftling (prisoner) or Muselmann (""the weak, the inept, those doomed to selection""), a kapo or a guard. * Philippe Sands * 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... One of the greatest human testaments of the era * Philip Roth * There are other Holocaust testimonies, but Levi's is the first, and the most focused... Written before the genre existed, it reads more straightforwardly like a record... It is a meticulously presented diary of hell * David Baddiel * [What] gave it such power... was the sheer, unmitigated truth of it; the sense of what a book could achieve in terms of expanding one's own knowledge and understanding at a single sitting... few writers have left such a legacy... A necessary book * Independent * A life-changing book * Daily Express * Among the best literature of the twentieth century * Atlantic * A powerful reminder of what it means to be human * The Conversation *"

Philip Roth * 'One of the greatest human testaments of the era.' * THE TRUCE: * 'One of the century's truly necessary books.' * A life-changing book. * Daily Express * The death of Primo Levi robs Italy of one of its finest writers...One of the few survivors of the Holocaust to speak of his experiences with a gentle voice * GUARDIAN * The death of Primo Levi robs Italy of one of its finest writers . . . One of the few survivors of the Holocaust to speak of his experiences with a gentle voice * Guardian * One of the greatest human testaments of the era * Scotsman * One of the century's truly necessary books -- Philip Roth

Author Information

Primo Levi was born in Turin in 1919 and trained as a chemist. Arrested as a member of the anti-fascist resistance during the war, he was deported to Auschwitz. His experiences there are described in his two classic autobiographical works, If This is a Man and The Truce. He also wrote a number of universally highly acclaimed novels and essay collections, including If Not Now, When?, Moments of Reprieve and The Wrench. The Drowned and the Saved, Levi's impassioned attempt to understand the 'rationale' behind the concentration camps, was completed shortly before his tragic death in Turin in 1987.

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