Primo Levi

Primo Levi was a Jewish Italian chemist, Holocaust survivor and author born in 1919 in Turin, Italy. Growing up, he was a sickly and frail child and was often mocked for his timid disposition and small frame. As such, he became socially withdrawn though he excelled in his academic pursuits and was among the Jews that got their degree from the university before it was made illegal for them to attend colleges. During the Holocaust, Levi became a partisan while his mother and sister hid from the police. Unfortunately, his partisan group was infiltrated by Mussolini fascists and he was caught and sent to a labor camp in Italy before being transferred to Auschwitz. Primo was among the very few that survived the horrors of the camp though his experience came to define him and his later career as an author. After the war, He started writing about his experiences through poetry and in 1946 he began writing the manuscript for his debut novel “If This Is A Man.”