The publication of the Complete Works of Primo Levi (edited by Ann Goldstein, Penguin Classics, £120) gives an opportunity to re examine the writer’s works in their impressive range.
Levi is and will remain best known as a writer of witness literature and author of a searing account of his experiences in Auschwitz, If this is a Man, of his return home, The Truce, and of a philosophical-moral work The Periodic Table, on the Holocaust and human responsibility. However, he was also author of critical essays, of sci-fi tales or fantastic-humorous stories on, for example, the original of centaurs. In addition, he wrote a novel, If Not Now When, and an idiosyncratic monologue-novel, The Wrench.
His achievements will be celebrated and discussed at a forum at the Italian Cultural Institute on 26 November at 6.00. Joseph Farrell, editor of Primo Levi: the Austere Humanist will introduce the event, and the principal speaker will be Ian Thomson, author of a much praised biography, Primo Levi (Hutchison, 2002).
All welcome. Book online
All welcome. Book online
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