Mirror Maker

I hope the reader will be indulgent toward the extreme dispersion of themes, tones, and angles of approach that he will find in this collection. My justification is: the 'pieces' are situated in an arc of time that is close to a quarter of a century, the time of my almost total fidelity to LA STAMPA: and in twenty-five years many things change, inside us and around us. Furthermore, they are conditioned by my intrinsic libertinage, in part willed, in part due to the itinerary fate has reserved for me; I've drunk at various founts and breathed different airs, some salutary, others quite polluted. . .

I'm a normal man with a good memory who fell into a maelstrom and got out of it more by luck than by virtue, and who from that time on has preserved a certain curiosity about maelstroms large and small, metaphorical and actual.

From Primo Levi's introduction to THE MIRROR MAKER, his eloquent, witty and wise collection of short stories and essays.

Primo Levi was born in Turin in 1919 and trained as chemist. Arrested a member of the anti-fascist resistance during the war, he was deported to Auschwitz. His experiences there are described in his two classic autobiographical works, IF THIS IS A MAN and THE TRUCE.

'I've drunk at various founts and breathed different airs, some salutary, other quite polluted . . . I'm a normal man with a good memory who fell into a maelstrom and got out of it more by luck than by virtue, and who from that time on has preserved a certain curiosity about maelstroms large and small, metaphorical and actual' Primo Levi 'To be welcomed and savoured for its unique range and tone. The articles, stories and poems collected in The Mirror Maker , all written for La Stampa during the last years of his life, show a man of undiminished curiosity and delicious sly humour. Perpetually questioning, witty and wise, Levi is one of those who has done something to redeem the century in which he lived and died' Claire Tomalin, Independent on Sunday 'It is essentially the same voice speaking here as in all of Levi's work: the beautifully eloquent voice of a beautiful and supreme reasonableness' Financial Times 'A further opportunity to appreciate Levi's penetrating yet quizzical vision of the awesome universe we inhabit and of Auschwitz, its perverse microcosm' TLS 'One of the most important and gifted writers of our time' Italo Calvino

I hope the reader will be indulgent toward the extreme dispersion of themes, tones, and angles of approach that he will find in this collection. My justification is: the 'pieces' are situated in an arc of time that is close to a quarter of a century, the time of my almost total fidelity to LA STAMPA: and in twenty-five years many things change, inside us and around us. Furthermore, they are conditioned by my intrinsic libertinage, in part willed, in part due to the itinerary fate has reserved for me; I've drunk at various founts and breathed different airs, some salutary, others quite polluted. . .I'm a normal man with a good memory who fell into a maelstrom and got out of it more by luck than by virtue, and who from that time on has preserved a certain curiosity about maelstroms large and small, metaphorical and actual.From Primo Levi's introduction to THE MIRROR MAKER, his eloquent, witty and wise collection of short stories and essays.

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