Discover Primo Levi

Biography

"I am a normal man with a good memory who fell into a maelstrom and got out of it more by luck than by virtue, and who from that time on has preserved a certain curiosity about maelstroms large and small, metaphorical and actual."
Primo Levi, 1986

The complete biography

Works

Primo Levi was engaged in his writing for forty years, from 1947 until his death in 1987, where he blended the originality of his topics with the unmistakable quality of his writing.

All the works

Bibliography

Published works in Italian and other languages. Texts published in periodicals and monographs, interviews and criticism. A consultable online catalog, constantly updated with new discoveries.

Bibliography of Primo Levi

Images

Portraits of Primo Levi, encounters with his various publics and with the leading figures of the twentieth century, his education and his professional activity.

All of the galleries

Topics in Primo Levi’s works

Argon

Jewish culture in Levi was filtered through the Italian tradition and his concrete experience as a secular and scientifically trained Piedmontese intellectual. A constant area of reflection, Jewish culture was an essential matrix for all his work.

Primo Levi and the Jewish world

Auschwitz

Primo Levi told the story of the extermination by the Nazis in an undeniable original way. At the same time. this was an essential testing ground for his talents as writer, thinker, and human being.

Primo Levi, deportation and concentration camp

Crafts

Reflections on work and on crafts run through all of Primo Levi’s works, ranging from an analysis of the conditions of slavery imposed in the concentration camp to his deep conviction that loving one’s work… is the most concrete approximation to happiness on earth.

Levi, work and the human being

Science

Primo Levi’s view of the world was always filtered through science- This left a deep imprint on his works and explains why the world of science has been deeply interested ion him.

Chemistry and writing

The Periodic Notebook

International Primo Levi Studies Center

Who we are

The Center addresses its activities to all readers of Primo Levi in every part of the world. It promotes research on Primo Levi and on the editions of his works in Italian as well as the many translations published in dozens of languages worldwide, his critical bibliography, and any kind of written or audiovisual documentation about his figure and about the reception of his works.

The Center

Primo Levi Dialogues

This is a new annual appointment for reflection and discovery, each of whose dialogues is a confrontation between two points of view, aiming from time to time to reconsider the works of Levi in depth through putting them into relationship with needs and issues that have come up in various realms of the social and cultural life of the world today.

The first Dialogue

Archives

Description of the documentary fonds related to Primo Levi, acquisitions or immanent acquisitions at the Center or at the archives of other institutions, a rich repertory of papers, collections of articles, books, original typescripts, interviews, photographs and other documents.

All the fonds

Publications

Publications edited by the Center to promote knowledge of Primo Levi and to feed into the discussions about his works and about topics that concerned Levi.

All the publications