PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Primo Levi was born in Turin in 1919 and trained as chemist. Arrested a member of the anti-fascist resistance during the war, he was deported to Auschwitz. His experiences there are described in his two classic autobiographical works, IF THIS IS A MAN and THE TRUCE.
Levi was imprisoned in Auschwitz from March 1944 to January 1945. Of the 650 Jews who entered the camp with him, 525 went to the gas chamber. He survived, and here describes his experience during those ten months. He explains the writing of this book as a need felt by all the survivors; 'the need to tell our story to 'the rest', to make the rest participate in it; the book has been written to satisfy this need: first and foremost, therefore, as an interior liberation.' He writes simply, elegantly, precisely about his experience. It is utterly matter-of-fact - not a hint of sensation, self-indulgence, or self pity. And the effect upon the reader is exactly that which he sought for himself in telling the tale; an interior liberation. To look at the worst that man can do, and know that the best cannot be destroyed by it. Review by Jane Rogers, whose novels include 'Island' (Kirkus UK)
