If This Is a Man

A chemist from Turin survives Auschwitz and writes about it with the precision of a scientist and the humanity of a poet. Primo Levi’s testimony is Italian literature at its most morally essential.

Why Read This

Where Calvino represents Italian literature’s playfulness, Levi represents its conscience. If This Is a Man proves that the Italian tradition of clear, elegant prose can serve the most harrowing subject imaginable. Levi writes about the Holocaust not with anger but with understanding, and that restraint makes his testimony more devastating than any polemic.

What to Expect

A short memoir in clear, accessible prose. The tone is calm and observational. One of the essential books of the twentieth century.