A moving book by a man with an indestructible faith in reason.

Published in 1947, If This Is a Man arose in the imagination of its author during the days of horror in Auschwitz. The concentration and extermination camps were guarded not only by barbed wire and guards but also by their own monstrosity, which made them inconceivable. It is the sobriety of Primo Levi’s testimony, a victim who does not scream but who draws the scream from the throat of his reader, that restores horror to its reality and makes it understandable as a sinister warning sign.