A Man of Few Words: The Bricklayer of Auschwitz Who Saved Primo Levi - Couverture rigide

Greppi, Carlo

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1908906618 ISBN 13 : 9781908906618

Editeur : The Westbourne Press, 2025

Synopsis

'Much to admire ... an intriguing study of Lorenzo Perrone, the bricklayer who helped the famous author survive Auschwitz.' --The Observer

Daunt’s Book of the Week

Nobody knows how much I owe that man’, Primo Levi said of his Italian compatriot Lorenzo Perrone, who saved his life at Auschwitz. ‘I could never repay him’. Each day for a period of six months, Perrone, who worked beside Auschwitz in desperate conditions, risked his own life to smuggle part of his own soup ration to Levi, quietly leaving the mess tin by a half-constructed brick wall. Without those extra five hundred calories, Levi could not have survived, and would probably not have written If This Is a Man, the first published account by a Holocaust survivor.

In A Man of Few Words, Carlo Greppi pieces together the life of Lorenzo Perrone, a bricklayer from the Piedmontese town of Fossano, not far from Levi’s native Turin. Near-destitute and with minimal formal education, Perrone left very few traces of himself. Yet despite their stark differences – Levi was a middle-class chemist – their friendship survived the Holocaust and continued until Perrone’s tragic death. Levi never forgot Perrone. In every book he wrote, he mentions that he owes his life to a man named Lorenzo, and he returned persistently, in the last years of his life, to the man of few words who saved his life.

Compassionate, worldly and prescient, Greppi brings us a story that has much to say about the world we live in today, about an individual who kept hope alive in one of the darkest times and places known to humankind.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Carlo Greppi (1982) is a historian at the University of Turin and author of numerous essays on the history of the twentieth century. For Laterza, he is the editor of the series ‘Fact Checking: History Under the Test of Facts’. His latest book is Il Buon Tedesco (2021, Fiuggi History Award 2021; Giacomo Matteotti Award 2022) which sold 10,000+ copies.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: The Westbourne Press
• Date d'édition: 2025
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1908906618
• ISBN 13: 9781908906618
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 256
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible