Primo Levi was born in Turin, Italy, in 1919, and trained as a chemist. He was arrested as a member of the anti-Fascist resistance, and then deported to Auschwitz in 1944. Levi's experience in the death camp and his subsequent travels through Eastern Europe are the subject of his two classic memoirs, "Survival in Auschwitz" and "The Reawakening" (also available from Collier books), as well as "Moments of Reprieve." In addition, he is the author of "The Periodic Table, If Not Now, When?, " which won the distinguished Viareggio and Campiello prizes when published in Italy in 1982, and most recently, "The Monkeys Wrench." "The first thing that needs to be said about Primo Levi," as John Gross remarked in "The New York Times, " "is that he might well have become a writer, and a very good writer, under any conditions; he is gifted and highly perceptive, a man with a lively curiosity, humor, and a sense of style." Dr. Levi retired from his position as manager of a Turin chemical factory in 1977 to devote himself full-time to writing. He died in 1987.
Robert S.C. Gordon is Senior Lecturer in Italian and Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University. His work on twentieth-century Italian culture includes books on Primo Levi and Pier Paolo Pasolini.
