A Short Biography of Primo Levi

Primo Levi was born in Turin, Italy, in 1919. He grew up in the then-vibrant Jewish community of Piedmont (later colorfully described in his novel The Periodic Table) where he received a classical education and was trained as a chemist. During the war, he joined the Italian resistance. He was captured and deported to Auschwitz. Of the 650 people deported with him, three survived. Shortly after returning to Turin and taking up work as a chemist, Levi wrote a memoir of his time in the concentration camp, If This Is a Man (translated in the United States as Survival in Auschwitz), which became not only one of the key testimonies of the Holocaust but also a masterpiece of European literature. Levi went on to become one of the most important Italian writers of the 20th century, matching the objective, descriptive eye of the scientist with a sensitivity to language and natural wit.