Who Was Primo Levi?
Tim Parks asks: ‘Can one ever know “too much†about a writer? Take the delicate case of Primo Levi, the Holocaust survivor who combined the careers of writer and professional chemist. Until recently I had only read Levi’s three most renowned works, his two great war memoirs, “If This Is a Man” and “The Truce,” and then “The Periodic Table,” a series of autobiographical pieces exploring the author’s relationships in the light of his work as a chemist.’
