Primo Levi was a Jewish Italian chemist, Holocaust survivor, and author, born in 1919 in Turin, Italy. He was a sickly and frail child who grew up to be socially withdrawn, despite his academic prowess. Levi excelled in his studies and was one of the few Jews to earn a degree from the university before it was prohibited for them to attend. During the Holocaust, he became a partisan while his mother and sister hid from the police. Unfortunately, his partisan group was infiltrated, and he was caught, leading to his imprisonment in a labor camp in Italy and later at Auschwitz. Out of the 650 Italian Jews in his transport, Levi was one of only twenty who survived and left the camps.
After the war, Levi started writing about his experiences through poetry and eventually published his debut novel, "If This Is A Man," in 1947. He is well-known for his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. His work "The Periodic Table," published in 1975, is a unique piece linking the qualities of the elements to his personal experiences. The Royal Institution of Great Britain named it the best science book ever written. Levi's life and work continue to be an important part of the historical record of the Holocaust and its impact on individuals and communities.
Primo Michele Levi passed away in 1987 from injuries sustained in a fall from a third-story apartment landing. While his death was officially ruled a suicide, some evidence suggests the possibility that the fall was accidental. The Primo Levi Center, dedicated to studying the history and culture of Italian Jewry, was named in his honor.
Auschwitz Trilogy Books
#
Title
Year
Goodreads
Amazon
1
Survival in Auschwitz
1947
2
The Reawakening
1963
3
The Drowned and the Saved
1986
Standalone Novels
#
Title
Year
Goodreads
Amazon
1
The Monkey's Wrench
1978
2
If Not Now, When?
1982
3
The Magic Paint
2011
Poetry Collections
#
Title
Year
Goodreads
Amazon
1
Shema
1981
2
Collected Poems
1981
3
The Survivor
1988
Collections
#
Title
Year
Goodreads
Amazon
1
The Sixth Day And Other Tales
1966
2
The Periodic Table
1975
3
The Mirror Maker
1986
4
A Tranquil Star
1988
Non-Fiction Books
#
Title
Year
Goodreads
Amazon
1
If This Is a Man & The Truce
1947
2
Moments of Reprieve
1981
3
The Search for Roots
1981
4
Conversations
1984
5
Dialogo
1984
6
Other People's Trades
1985
7
Auschwitz Report
1989
8
The Voice of Memory
1997
9
The Black Hole of Auschwitz
2004
10
Auschwitz Testimonies
2015
11
The Last Interview
2016
Primo Levi Anthologies
#
Title
Year
Goodreads
Amazon
1
The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness
1969
2
Friendship
1990
3
On Suicide: Great Writers on the Ultimate Question