The Periodic Table

Primo Levi

1975

There was a mysterious jar on one of the shelves. It contained about twenty gray, hard, colorless, tasteless little rods and did not have a label. This was very strange, because it was a German laboratory. Yes, of course, the Russians were a few kilometers away, catastrophe was in the air, almost visible; there were bombings every day; everybody…

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Creator Bio

Primo Levi

1919–1987
A chemist and a writer of memoirs, short stories, poems, essays, and novels, Primo Levi was an Italian-born Holocaust survivor and one of the foremost Italian writers of the aftermath of World War II. He studied chemistry at the University of Turin, graduating in 1941. Subsequently he wrote for the resistance magazine Giustizia e Libertà (Justice and Freedom) and joined a group of Italian partisans. In 1943, he was captured and deported to Auschwitz. He was liberated in 1945 by the Soviets. Levi won the first annual Premio Campiello Literary Award in 1963 and the Premio Viareggio in 1982. He died in Turin.

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