This book is the culmination of twenty years’ work by the editor of Primo Levi’s Opere published by Einaudi. It is not a traditional book, but a kind of album or atlas about Levi’s life, works, and principal concerns.

It includes a story of Levi’s life in 10 photographic essays; an annotated commentary on the genesis, development, and publication of each of Levi’s works; lemmas, or dictionary-type entries, on the dominant themes of each work and their inter-textuality; brief essays which analyze Levi’s links with other writers and recurrent topics in his works such as dreams, animals, travel, literary style, being a witness, chemistry, work, comedy, tragedy, shame, memory, Judaism, and many more besides.

It is possible to enjoy the book as a chronology of Levi’s growth as a writer, as an engrossing narrative of his life’s preoccupations, or as a dictionary for looking up topics and themes. The modular structure of the book invites the idea of an e-book edition that can be updated from year to year: potentially an open encyclopedia of Primo Levi’s oeuvre.

English short version available (500 pp).