Survival In Auschwitz [Paperback]

The true and harrowing account of Primo Levi’s experience at the German concentration camp of Auschwitz and his miraculous survival; hailed byThe Times Literary Supplementas a “true work of art, this edition includes an exclusive conversation between the author and Philip Roth.

In 1943, Primo Levi, a twenty-five-year-old chemist and “Italian citizen of Jewish race,” was arrested by Italian fascists and deported from his native Turin to Auschwitz.Survival in Auschwitzis Levi’s classic account of his ten months in the German death camp, a harrowing story of systematic cruelty and miraculous endurance. Remarkable for its simplicity, restraint, compassion, and even wit,Survival in Auschwitzremains a lasting testament to the indestructibility of the human spirit. Included in this new edition is an illuminating conversation between Philip Roth and Primo Levi never before published in book form.Primo Leviwas 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 AuschwitzandThe Reawakening(also available from Collier books), as well asMoments of Reprieve.In addition, he is the author ofThe 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 inThe 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 himselƒ¯