The Complete Works Of Primo Levi

Description

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 of: 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.

Reviews

"Levi, a scientist and deep humanist, vividly comes alive in this boxed set. A laudable, monumental effort to gather the work of a crucial writer of the 20th century in one voluminous package." -- Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review "The Complete Works of Primo Levi is an act that transfigures publishing into conscience at its most sublime." -- Cynthia Ozick "With the moral stamina and intellectual pose 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." -- Philip Roth "The triumph of human identity and worth over the pathology of human destruction glows virtually everywhere in Levi's writing...Time and time again we are moved by his narratives of how men refuse erasure." -- Toni Morrison, from the introduction "His life was a testament to the virtues of getting the past into proportion." -- Clive James "Primo Levi's poise was one of the greatest achievements in the history of the human spirit. His writing restored the honor of humanism after Auschwitz. This was a man." -- Leon Wieseltier

Author description

Primo Levi (1919-1987) was an Italian chemist and writer, best known for his memoirs If This Is a Man and The Periodic Table. Ann Goldstein, the translator of all of Elena Ferrante's novels, is an editor at The New Yorker and a recipient of a PEN Renato Poggioli Translation Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Toni Morrison is a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.