A new edition of Primo Levi’s classic memoir of the Holocaust, with an introduction by David Baddiel, author of Jews Don’t Count
‘With the moral stamina and intellectual poise of a twentieth-century Titan, this slightly built, dutiful, unassuming chemist set out systematically to remember the German hell on earth, steadfastly to think it through, and then to render it comprehensible in lucid, unpretentious prose… One of the greatest human testaments of the era’ Philip Roth
‘Levi’s voice is especially affecting, so clear, firm and gentle, yet humane and apparently untouched by anger, bitterness or self-pity… If This Is a Man is miraculous, finding the human in every individual who traverses its pages’ Philippe Sands
‘The death of Primo Levi robs Italy of one of its finest writers… One of the few survivors of the Holocaust to speak of his experiences with a gentle voice’ Guardian
‘[What] gave it such power… was the sheer, unmitigated truth of it; the sense of what a book could achieve in terms of expanding one’s own knowledge and understanding at a single sitting… few writers have left such a legacy… A necessary book’ Independent
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Reviews
A powerful reminder of what it means to be human
Levi's voice is especially affecting, so clear, firm and gentle, yet humane and apparently untouched by anger, bitterness or self-pity. If This Is a Man is miraculous, finding the human in every individual who traverses its pages, whether a Häftling (prisoner) or Muselmann ("the weak, the inept, those doomed to selection"), a kapo or a guard.
With the moral stamina and intellectual poise of a twentieth-century Titan, this slightly built, dutiful, unassuming chemist set out systematically to remember the German hell on earth, steadfastly to think it through, and then to render it comprehensible in lucid, unpretentious prose... One of the greatest human testaments of the era
Among the best literature of the twentieth century
A life-changing book
There are other Holocaust testimonies, but Levi's is the first, and the most focused... Written before the genre existed, it reads more straightforwardly like a record... It is a meticulously presented diary of hell
[What] gave it such power... was the sheer, unmitigated truth of it; the sense of what a book could achieve in terms of expanding one's own knowledge and understanding at a single sitting... few writers have left such a legacy... A necessary book
The death of Primo Levi robs Italy of one of its finest writers . . . One of the few survivors of the Holocaust to speak of his experiences with a gentle voice