Primo Levi

An Identikit

Marco Belpoliti, Clarissa Botsford

$74.95

Hardback

In stock
Ready to ship

QTY:

English

Seagull
17 June 2022

Biography; Biography: general

Series: The Italian List

Drawing on twenty years of research, this is the definitive biography of Primo Levi.

Over the last seventy years, Primo Levi (1919-87) has been recognized as the foremost literary witness of the extermination of the European Jews. In Primo Levi: An Identikit, a product of twenty years of research, Marco Belpoliti explores Levi's tormented life, his trajectory as a writer and intellectual, and, above all, his multifaceted and complex oeuvre.

Organized in a mosaic format, this volume devotes a different chapter to each of Levi's books. In addition to tracing the history of each book's composition, publication, and literary influences, Belpoliti explores their contents across the many worlds of Primo Levi: from chemistry to anthropology, biology to ethology, space flights to linguistics. If This Is a Man, his initially rejected masterpiece, is also reread with a fresh perspective. We learn of dreams, animals, and travel; of literary writing, comedy, and tragedy; of shame, memory, and the relationship with other writers such as Franz Kafka and Georges Perec, Jean Amery and Varlam Shalamov. Fundamental themes such as Judaism, the camp, and testimony innervate the book, which is complemented with photographs and letters found by the author in hitherto unexplored archives.

This will be the definitive book on Primo Levi, a treasure trove of stories and reflections that paint a rich, nuanced composite portrait of one of the twentieth century's most unique and urgent voices.

By: Marco Belpoliti
Translated by: Clarissa Botsford
Imprint: Seagull
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 23mm, Width: 15mm, Spine: 4mm
Weight: 936g
ISBN: 9780857428998
ISBN 10: 0857428993
Series: The Italian List
Pages: 780
Publication Date: 17 June 2022
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Marco Belpoliti is an essayist, writer, and professor at the University of Bergamo. He edits the series Riga for Quodlibet and the online magazine Doppiozero. Clarissa Botsford teaches English and translation studies at Roma Tre University. She lives in Rome.