Primo Levi
31 July 1919 – 11 April 1987
Primo Levi was an Italian chemist and writer. Arrested as a member of an anti-fascist partisan group in 1943, he was deported to Auschwitz and survived eleven months there, an experience recorded in his first book, If This Is a Man. He combined a long career as an industrial chemist with writing, producing memoirs, essays, short stories and the book The Periodic Table.
Lived at the same time
Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Primo Levi.
- Alan Paton (1903–1988) Overlapped 68 years →
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Overlapped 68 years →
- Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) Overlapped 68 years →
- Astrid Lindgren (1907–2002) Overlapped 68 years →
- Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006) Overlapped 68 years →
- Bette Davis (1908–1989) Overlapped 68 years →
Life events
He was born into a liberal Italian Jewish family in the apartment where he lived for most of his life.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe took his degree with distinction despite the restrictions imposed by Italy's racial laws.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe was captured in the Aosta valley and, having declared himself Jewish, was sent to the Fossoli camp.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe worked in a laboratory at the Buna synthetic rubber plant, which he later credited with helping him survive.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgThe months-long repatriation became the subject of his second book, The Truce.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgThe memoir appeared with a small publisher and sold modestly before its 1958 reissue by Einaudi.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe remained at the company near Turin until his retirement in 1977.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgThe collection of autobiographical pieces, each named for a chemical element, brought him wide international readership.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHis final book of essays examined memory, testimony and the moral ambiguities of the camps.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe died after falling from the interior landing of his apartment building; the coroner ruled the death a suicide.
Source: en.wikipedia.org