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. |
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