Primo Levi is not only a supreme witness of the Shoah and a guardian of memory, but also an analyst of the 'gray zone', a narrator of the happiness of creative work and of prophetic science-fiction fables, a novelist of a renewed Jewish identity, a curious and amused encyclopedist, linguist, a zoologist, a poet, a master of clear writing that "always has a more word than the other writers."
His work combines ethical tension, powers of observation and rigorous investigation in trying to answer the fundamental question: is this the man?