The Periodic Table

In this literary masterpiece, one of the twentieth century’s most significant writers reflects on his life before and after the Holocaust, merging the scientific and the humane into a profound “work of healing” (New York Times Book Review) • Fiftieth anniversary edition, with a new introduction by Rivka Galchen

As a youth, Primo Levi became fascinated by the laboratory, a site where the mysteries of the material world are unlocked and substances reveal their deepest truths. In this graceful, vital book—originally published in Italian in 1975—his passion for chemistry spans his extraordinary life story, with each chapter’s theme anchored in a different element of the periodic table. Beginning with his childhood in Italy’s Piedmontese Jewish community, Levi narrates his years as a student and fledgling scientist, before the descent of World War II, when he fought as an anti-fascist partisan until his arrest and transportation to Auschwitz. After surviving captivity, he returned to his work as a chemist and as a writer, striving in both realms to transmute matter into meaning. An artistic masterpiece of the highest order, The Periodic Table champions the power of friendship and curiosity to transcend times of tyranny and testifies to the fundamental interconnectedness of all the stuff of the universe—including us.

PRIMO LEVI was born in Turin in 1919 to an Italian-Jewish family. Arrested as a member of the anti-Fascist resistance, he was deported to Auschwitz in 1944. After the war, Levi resumed his careers as a chemist and a writer in Turin until his untimely death in 1987. During his writing career, Levi won every distinguished prize in his native Italy. The Periodic Table, the first of his books to appear in America, was selected as one of the Best Books of 1985 by The New York Times Book Review.