Primo Levi

The Periodic Table by Primo Levi is a profound exploration of the author's life, uniquely framed through the lens of the chemical elements. Drawing on his background as a professional chemist, Levi reflects on his experiences, each chapter ingeniously linked to a specific element of the periodic table. Through this inventive structure, he intimately connects his personal history to the...

The Drowned and the Saved is a profound exploration of the harrowing experiences of Holocaust survivors through the eyes of Primo Levi, a survivor himself. Levi delves deeply into the moral and ethical complexities faced by those who endured the concentration camps during World War II. The book is divided into a series of essays that contemplate the psychological state...

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...

In these haunting reflections, Primo Levi, a chemist by training, takes the elements of the periodic table as his inspiration. He ranges from young love to political savagery. Iron honours the mountain-climbing resistance hero who put iron in Levi's student soul, while Cerium recalls the improvised cigarette lighters which saved his life in Auschwitz.

At the start of 1987, Primo Levi took part in a remarkable series of conversations about his early life with a friend and fellow writer, Giovanni Tesio. This book is the result of those meetings, originally intended to be the basis for an authorized biography and published here in English for the first time. In a densely packed dialogue, Levi...

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...

Survival in Auschwitz: If This Is a Man is a book written by the Italian author, Primo Levi. It describes his arrest as a member of the Italian anti-fascist resistance during the Second World War, and his incarceration in the Auschwitz concentration camp from February 1944 until the camp was liberated on 27 January 1945. Levi, then a 25-year-old chemist,...

Primo Levi's account of life as a concentration camp prisoner falls into two parts. If This is a Man describes his deportation to Poland and the 20 months he spent working in Auschwitz. The Truce covers his journey home to Italy at the end of the war.

In 1945, soon after the liberation of Auschwitz, Soviet authorities in control of the Kattowitz (Katowice) camp in Poland asked Primo Levi and his fellow captive, Leonardo De Benedetti, to compile a detailed report on the sanitary conditions they witnessed in Auschwitz. The result was an extraordinary testimony and one of the first accounts of the extermination camps ever written....

Fifty new books at £1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. The Survivor presents a selection of poetry from the author of If This is a Man and The Periodic Table. "Back, away from here, drowned people, go. I haven't stolen anyone's place."

Primo Levi was one of the most astonishing voices to emerge from the twentieth century. This landmark selection of his short stories opens up a world of wonder, love, cruelty, and curious twists of fate, where nothing is as it seems. In The Fugitive, an office worker composes the most beautiful poem ever, with unforeseen consequences. Meanwhile, Magic Paint sees...