The Survivor

'Back, away from here, drowned people, go. I haven't stolen anyone's place' 
 
A selection of poetry from the author of If this is a Man and The Periodic Table. 
 
Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

Primo Levi, born in Turin, Italy, in 1919, and trained as a chemist, was arrested during the Second World War as a member of the anti-Fascist resistance and deported to Auschwitz in 1944. His experience in the death camp and his subsequent travels through Eastern Europe were the subject of powerful memoirs, fiction and poetry. Levi died in Turin in April 1987.

The Periodic Table

Wonderfully daring . . . Its extraordinary shifts of tone, from learned scientific treatise to epic war narrative, reflect Levi's eclectic reading and mesmeric story-telling gifts

In 1919, Primo Levi was born into a Jewish family in Turin, Italy, in 1919. Despite the anti-Semitic laws introduced to Italy by Mussolini's government, he was able to complete his degree in Chemistry at Turin University in 1941. When the Germans invaded northern Italy in 1943, Levi escaped to the mountains to join a group of anti-fascist partisans but was soon captured and eventually deported to Auschwitz. He was liberated in January 1945. After the war he resumed his career as a chemist, retiring only in 1975. His graphic account of his time in Auschwitz, If This is a Man, was published in 1947. Levi went on to write many other books, including The Wrench, If Not Now, When? and The Periodic Table, emerging not only as one of the most profound and haunting commentators on the Holocaust, but as a great writer on many twentieth-century themes, especially science. Primo Levi committed suicide on 11 April 1987.

'So it happens, therefore, that every element says something to someone' 
 
Inspired by the rhythms of the Periodic Table, Primo Levi assesses his life in terms of the chemical elements he associates with his past. From his birth into an Italian Jewish family through his training as a chemist, to the pain and darkness of the Holocaust and its aftermath, Levi reflects on the difficult course of his life in this heartfelt and deeply moving book.

The Magic Paint

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Primo Levi was born in Turin in 1919. The son of an educated middle-class Jewish family, he graduated with a degree in chemistry and found a job as a research chemist in Milan. In December 1943, he was arrested as part of the anti-fascist resistance and deported to Auschwitz. After the war, Levi resumed his career as a chemist, retiring only in 1975. His graphic account of his time in Auschwitz, If This Is a Man, was published in 1947 and he went on to write many other books, including If Not Now, When? and The Periodic Table, emerging not only as one of the most profound and haunting commentators on the Holocaust, but as a great writer on many twentieth-century themes. In 1987, Primo Levi died in a fall that is widely believed to have been suicide.

'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

Unpublished Stories

A Tranquil Star

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.

Moments of Reprieve

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'.

If Not Now, When?

Writer 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 the forthcoming Modern Classics: MOMENTS OF REPRIEVE.

Primo Levi was among the greatest witnesses to twentieth-century atrocity. In this gripping novel, based on a true story, he reveals the extraordinary lives of the Russian, Polish and Jewish partisans trapped behind enemy lines during the Second World War. Wracked by fear, hunger and fierce rivalries, they link up, fall apart, struggle to stay alive and to sabotage the efforts of the all-powerful German army. A compelling tale of action, resistance and epic adventure, it also reveals Levi's characteristic compassion and deep insight into the moral dilemmas of total war. It ranks alongside THE PERIOD TABLE and IF THIS IS A MAN as one of the rare authentic masterpieces of our times.

Primo Levi's The Periodic Table is a collection of short stories that elegantly interlace the author's experiences in Fascist Italy, and later in Auschwitz, with his passion for scientific knowledge and discovery. This Penguin Modern Classics edition of is translated by Raymond Rosenthal with an essay on Primo Levi by Philip Roth. 
 
A chemist by training, Primo Levi became one of the supreme witnesses to twentieth-century atrocity. In these haunting reflections inspired by the elements of the periodic table, he ranges from young love to political savagery; from the inert gas argon - and 'inert' relatives like the uncle who stayed in bed for twenty-two years - to life-giving carbon. 'Iron' honours the mountain-climbing resistance hero who put iron in Levi's student soul, 'Cerium' recalls the improvised cigarette lighters which saved his life in Auschwitz, while 'Vanadium' describes an eerie post-war correspondence with the man who had been his 'boss' there. 
 
In his essay, Philip Roth reproduces a conversation with Primo Levi, delving into the process of Levi's authorial technique, his sense of identity and distinctiveness and the relationship between science, writing and survival. 
 
Primo Levi (1919-87), 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 the author of Moments of Reprieve and If Not Now, When?, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 
 
Philip Roth is the author of Nemesis and The Plot Against America, and winner of the both the Pulitzer prize, and the Man Booker International prize. 
 
If you enjoyed The Periodic Table, you might like Levi's If Not Now, When?, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 
 
'A book it is necessary to read' 
Saul Bellow, author of Herzog 
 
'One of the finest writers in post-war Italy' 
The Times

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 the forthcoming Modern Classics: MOMENTS OF REPRIEVE and IF NOT NOW, WHEN?

A chemist by training, Primo Levi became one of the supreme witnesses to twentieth-century atrocity. In these haunting reflections inspired by the elements of the periodic table, he ranges from young love to political savagery; from the inert gas argon - and 'inert' relatives like the uncle who stayed in bed for twenty-two years - to life-giving carbon. 'Iron' honours the mountain-climbing resistance hero who put iron in Levi's student soul, 'Cerium' recalls the improvised cigarette lighters which saved his life in Auschwitz, while 'Vanadium' describes an eerie post-war correspondence with the man who had been his 'boss' there. All are written with characteristically understated eloquence and shot through with deep humanity.

If This is Man and The Truce

Primo Levi's account of life as a concentration camp prisoner falls into two parts. IF THIS IS A MAN describes his deportation to Poland and the twenty months he spend working in Auschwitz. THE TRUCE covers his long journey to Italy at the end of the war through Russia and Central Europe. Levi never raises his voice, complains or attributes blame. By telling his story quietly, objectively and in plain language he renders both the horror and the hope of the situation with absolute clarity. Probing the themes which preoccupy all his writing - work love, power, the nature of things, what it is to be human - he leaves the reader drained, elated, apprehensive.

An extraordinary kind of autobiography in which each of the 21 chapters takes its title and its starting-point from one of the elements in the periodic table. Mingling fact and fiction, science and personal record, history and anecdote, Levi uses his training as an industrial chemist and the terrible years he spent as a prisoner in Auschwitz to illuminate the human condition. Yet this exquisitely lucid text is also humourous and even witty in a way possible only to one who has looked into the abyss.

Primo Levi

Graham White

Ben Crowe

Akbar Kurtha

Henry Goodman

Paul Copley

Full Cast

Evie Killip

Janet Suzman

Dramatisations and readings from the award-winning anthology

Scientist, resistance fighter and Holocaust survivor, Primo Levi was one of Italy's greatest writers and an internationally renowned chronicler of human nature. In his masterpiece The Periodic Table, he charts his incredible life story through the medium of chemistry, using the titular list of elements - the building blocks of everything - as a prism to explore his experiences and search his soul. 
 
In this superlative BBC adaptation, all 21 of the peerless stories in Levi's memoir are incorporated into 11 radio episodes, comprising both compelling dramatisations (starring Henry Goodman as the older Primo and Akbar Kurtha as his younger self) and eloquent readings by Paul Copley, Ben Crowe, Evie Killip and Henry Goodman. The chapters are preceded by a short introductory feature by Janet Suzman, discussing Levi's life and writing and featuring archive interviews with Levi himself. 
 
We hear of Levi's student days in Fascist Italy, his battles as a partisan, his imprisonment in Auschwitz, his subsequent career as a professional chemist, and his imagined meeting with his Piedmontese ancestors - as well as his job in a paint factory in the 1960s and an unsettling encounter with his past. Alongside these autobiographical meditations are fabulous fictional tales of a European prospector, a little girl enchanted by white paint, an 1820s captain living on a remote island with strange chemical properties, and the incredible, centuries-long journey of a single carbon atom... 
 
Named 'the best science book ever' by the Royal Institution of Great Britain, this astonishing compilation fuses autobiography and fantasy, science and emotion, to extraordinary effect. Vivid, powerful and breathtaking, it will surprise, amuse and move you, lingering in your imagination and changing the way you look at the world. 
 
Written by Primo Levi 
Dramatised by Graham White from the translation by Raymond Rosenthal 
Introduced by Janet Suzman 
Produced and directed by Emma Harding and Marc Beeby 
 
Vanadium, Part 1 
Older Primo - Henry Goodman 
Cometto - John Rowe 
Dr Muller - Erich Redman 
Younger Primo - Akbar Kurtha 
Lucia - Juliet Aubrey 
Polish overseer - Chris Pavlo 
 
Argon 
Older Primo - Henry Goodman 
Cesare - John Rowe 
Jacob - David Horovitch 
Moses - David Hounslow 
Samuel - Sam Dale 
Abigail - Jessica Turner 
Zepora - Debra Baker 
 
Sulphur 
Read by Ben Crowe 
 
Titanium 
Read by Evie Killip 
 
Lead 
Read by Paul Copley 
 
Mercury 
Abrahams - Paul Hilton 
Maggie - Amelia Lowdell 
Hendrik - Nicholas Murchie 
Willem - Leo Wan 
Andrea - Chris Pavlo 
Gaetano - George Watkins 
Burton - Richard Pepple 
Rebecca - Debra Baker 
Woman - Katie Redford 
 
Iron 
Younger Primo - Akbar Kurtha 
Older Primo - Henry Goodman 
Enrico/Marchetti - Caolan McCarthy 
Rina - Debra Baker 
Lazzari - Sam Dale 
Luca - Leo Wan 
Giulia - Rebecca Hamilton 
Caselli - Stephen Critchlow 
Bettega - George Watkins 
Rita - Katie Redford 
Sandro - Andrew Rothney 
Dallaporta - Richard Pepple 
Antaeus - David Hounslow 
Alida - Amelia Lowdell 
 
Gold 
Older Primo - Henry Goodman 
Younger Primo - Akbar Kurtha 
Vanda - Rebecca Hamilton 
Silvio - Leo Wan 
Lina - Evie Killip 
Aldo - George Watkins 
Militiaman 1/Prisoner - David Hounslow 
Militiaman 2 - Caolan McCarthy 
Fossa - Stephen Critchlow 
Cagni - Nicholas Murchie 
 
Cerium 
Older Primo - Henry Goodman 
Younger Primo - Akbar Kurtha 
Alberto - Leo Wan 
Guard - Erich Redman 
Prisoner 1- David Hounslow 
Prisoner 2 - Sam Dale 
 
Arsenic and Silver 
Older Primo - Henry Goodman 
Younger Primo - Akbar Kurtha 
Versino - Jessica Turner 
Lentini - Nicholas Murchie 
Bruni - David Horovitch 
Cometto - John Rowe 
Lucia - Juliet Aubrey 
Gallery director/Emilio's father - Stephen Critchlow 
Emilio - Caolan McCarthy 
Farmer - David Hounslow 
Customer - Ben Crowe 
Bonino - Sam Dale 
Gina - Rebecca Hamilton 
 
Vanadium, Part 2 
Older Primo - Henry Goodman 
Younger Primo - Akbar Kurtha 
Cometto - John Rowe 
Dr Muller - Erich Redman 
Lucia - Juliet Aubrey 
Polish overseer - Chris Pavlo 
Postwoman - Debra Baker 
 
Carbon 
Read by Henry Goodman

Primo Levi's The Periodic Table

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