ABSTRACT
News of the death of Primo Levi in April 1987 brought with it a sense of loss, painful at the time, that has not entirely receded to this day. Levi's death was reported to be self-inflicted, reason enough to feel more than just saddened by the passing of an exceptionally fine writer. Levi had triumphed through an act of mind that could record the worst of human experience and simultaneously contain it in a language whose fundamental clarity, sobriety, and formal elegance seemed to be safeguards against any lingering threats from the past. Although he had plenty to be angry about, Levi had reached an unusual level of intellectual and moral poise in his books and, so it appeared, had achieved a degree of inner peace that might almost be taken as a form of serenity. Levi understood himself as a writer-witness and wrote from a point of view that he shared with others who had undergone analogous experience.
