The Complete Works of Primo Levi

2015 Washington Post Notable Book

The Complete Works of Primo Levi, which includes seminal works like If This Is a Man and The Periodic Table, finally gathers all fourteen of Levi s books memoirs, essays, poetry, commentary, and fiction into three slipcased volumes.

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.