Moments of Reprieve - Softcover

Levi, Primo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140093702 ISBN 13: 9780140093704

Publisher: Penguin, 1987

Synopsis

"One of the most important and gifted writers of our time" --Italo Calvino

Primo Levi was one of the most astonishing voices to emerge from the twentieth century: a man who survived one of the ugliest times in history, yet who was able to describe his own Auschwitz experience with an unaffected tenderness.

Levi was a master storyteller but he did not write fairytales. These stories are an elegy to the human figures who stood out against the tragic background of Auschwitz, "the ones in whom I had recognized the will and capacity to react, and hence a rudiment of virtue." Each centres on an individual who--whether it be through a juggling trick, a slice of apple or a letter--discovers one of the "bizarre, marginal moments of reprieve."

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About this title

About the Author

Primo Levi (1919-1987), an Italian Jew, did not come to the wide attention of the English-reading audience until the last years of his life. A survivor of the Holocaust and imprisonment in Auschwitz, Levi is considered to be one of the century's most compelling voices, and The Periodic Table is his most famous book. Levi is also the author of Moments of Reprieve.

Synopsis

A collection of stories centering on life and death in Auschwitz during World War II. The 15 stories each focus on a different character, a protagonist who, behind barbed wire, somehow survives, even if the virtue that allows him to survive is not always one approved of by common morality.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0140093702
• ISBN 13: 9780140093704
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 176