Primo Levi's account of life as a concentration camp prisoner falls into two parts. IF THIS IS A MAN describes his deportation to Poland & the twenty months he spend working in Auschwitz. THE TRUCE covers his long journey to Italy at the end of the war through Russia & Central Europe. Levi never raises his voice, complains or attributes blame. By telling his story quietly, objectively & in plain language he renders both the horror & the hope of the situation with absolute clarity. Probing the themes which preoccupy all his writing
- work love, power, the nature of things, what it is to be human
- he leaves the reader drained, elated, apprehensive.