The Periodic Table by Primo Levi is an impassioned response to the Holocaust: Consisting of 21 short stories, each possessing the name of a chemical element, the collection tells of the author's experiences as a Jewish-Italian chemist before, during, and after Auschwitz in luminous, clear, and unfailingly beautiful prose. It has been named the best science book ever by the Royal Institution of Great Britain and is considered to be Levi's crowning achievement.

These seventeen stories, first published in Italian between 1949 and 1986, demonstrate Levi's extraordinary range, taking the reader from the primal resistance of a captured partisan fighter to a middle-aged chemist experimenting with a new paint that wards off evil, to the lustful thoughts of an older man obsessed with a mysterious woman in a seaside villa. In the title story, Levi demonstrates his unerringly tragic understanding of the fragility of the universe through the tale of a pensive astronomer, terrified by the possibility that a long-dormant star might explode and reduce the entire planet to vapor. This remarkable new collection affirms Italo Calvino's conviction that Levi was "one of the most important and gifted writers of our time."

Whether describing the most beautiful poem ever composed or an invention gone horribly wrong, this title features eight stories that open up a rich, fantastical world of wonder, adventure and cruel twists of fate, where nothing is as it seems. It includes: 'The Magic Paint', 'The Death of Marinese', 'Censorship in Bitinia', and 'Knall'.

Primo Levi, the Italian-born chemist once described by Philip Roth as that “quicksilver little woodland creature enlivened by the forest’s most astute intelligence,” has largely been considered a heroic figure in the annals of twentieth-century literature for If This Is a Man, his haunting account of Auschwitz. Yet Levi’s body of work extends considerably beyond his experience as a survivor. Now, the transformation of Levi from Holocaust memoirist to one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers culminates in this publication of The Complete Works of Primo Levi. This magisterial collection finally gathers all of Levi’s fourteen books—memoirs, essays, poetry, and fiction—into three slip-cased volumes. Thirteen of the books feature new translations, and the other is newly revised by the original translator. Nobel laureate Toni Morrison introduces Levi’s writing as a “triumph of human identity and worth over the pathology of human destruction.” The appearance of this historic publication will occasion a major reappraisal of “one of the most valuable writers of our time” (Alfred Kazin). The Complete Works of Primo Levi features all new translations of: The Periodic Table, The Drowned and the Saved, The Truce, Natural Histories, Flaw of Form, The Wrench, Lilith, Other People’s Trades, and If Not Now, When?—as well as all of Levi’s poems, essays, and other nonfiction work, some of which have never appeared before in English.

Durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Primo Levi, vingt-quatre ans, juif, lutte auxcotes des maquisards antifascistes du Piemont. Capture en 1943, il se retrouvepeu apres a Auschwitz, ou il demeurera plus d'un an avant d'etre libere par l'armeerusse en janvier 1945.Au camp, il observe tout. Il se souviendra de tout, racontera tout: la promiscuitedes blocks-dortoirs, les camarades qu'on y decouvre a l'aube, morts de froid et defaim; les humiliations et le travail quotidiens, sous les coups de trique des kapos;les selections periodiques ou l'on separe les malades des bien-portants pourles envoyer a la mort; les pendaisons pour l'exemple; les trains, bourres de juifset de tziganes, qu'on dirige des leur arrivee vers les crematoires...Et pourtant, dans ce recit, la dignite la plus impressionnante; aucune haine, aucunexces, aucune exploitation des souffrances personnelles, mais une reflexionmorale sur la douleur, sublimee en une vision de la vie. Paru en 1946, Si c'est un homme est considere comme un des livres les plusimportants du XXe siecle. Parce qu'il est familier des grands textes philosophiques, Raphael Enthoven resout avec une talentueuse sobriete la difficile equation que pose le texte de Primo Levi: comment nommer l'innommable ? Remerciements a Benoit Peeters, ecrivain, pour sa lecture de l'interview de Primo Levi par Philippe Roth. Avec le soutien de la Fondation pour la Memoire de la Shoah

Durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Primo Levi, vingt-quatre ans, juif, lutte auxcotes des maquisards antifascistes du Piemont. Capture en 1943, il se retrouvepeu apres a Auschwitz, ou il demeurera plus d'un an avant d'etre libere par l'armeerusse en janvier 1945.Au camp, il observe tout. Il se souviendra de tout, racontera tout: la promiscuitedes blocks-dortoirs, les camarades qu'on y decouvre a l'aube, morts de froid et defaim; les humiliations et le travail quotidiens, sous les coups de trique des kapos;les selections periodiques ou l'on separe les malades des bien-portants pourles envoyer a la mort; les pendaisons pour l'exemple; les trains, bourres de juifset de tziganes, qu'on dirige des leur arrivee vers les crematoires...Et pourtant, dans ce recit, la dignite la plus impressionnante; aucune haine, aucunexces, aucune exploitation des souffrances personnelles, mais une reflexionmorale sur la douleur, sublimee en une vision de la vie. Paru en 1946, Si c'est un homme est considere comme un des livres les plusimportants du XXe siecle. Parce qu'il est familier des grands textes philosophiques, Raphael Enthoven resout avec une talentueuse sobriete la difficile equation que pose le texte de Primo Levi: comment nommer l'innommable ? Remerciements a Benoit Peeters, ecrivain, pour sa lecture de l'interview de Primo Levi par Philippe Roth. Avec le soutien de la Fondation pour la Memoire de la Shoah

'He was blamed for endless disasters, from failed exams to a bridge collapse, an avalanche, even a shipwreck: all due, in the stupid opinion of, first, his fellow-students and, later, his colleagues, to the penetrating power of his evil eye...'Profound and compassionate, Primo Levi was one of the most astonishing literary voices to emerge from the twentieth century. Whether describing the most beautiful poem ever composed or an invention gone horribly wrong, these eight exquisitely wrought stories open up a rich, fantastical world of wonder, adventure and cruel twists of fate, where nothing is as it seems.This book contains The Magic Paint, The Death of Marinese, Censorship in Bitinia, Knall, Gladiators, The Fugitive, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Buffet Dinner

Primo Levi was one of the most astonishing voices to emerge from the twentieth century. This landmark selection of his short stories opens up a world of wonder, love, cruelty and curious twists of fate, where nothing is as it seems. In 'The Fugitive' an office worker composes the most beautiful poem ever with unforeseen consequences, while 'Magic Paint' sees a group of researchers develop a paint that mysteriously protects them from misfortune. 'Gladiators' and 'The Knall' are chilling explorations of mass violence, and in 'The Tranquil Star' a simple story of stargazing becomes a meditation on language, imagination and infinity.