GreatLives: Primo Levi 21 May 13




Great Lives show

Summary: Edmund de Waal chooses a writer he believes is one of the greatest of the modern age - Primo Levi, author of the Periodic Table. Born in 1919 in Turin, Levi was an Italian Jew, one of the few deported to Auschwitz who would escape alive. Ceramicist and author Edmund de Waal joins Matthew Parris to discuss how Levi's work inspired The Hare With Amber Eyes - his own memoir of his family's history as Jews in 19th and 20th century Europe. And biographer Ian Thomson, one of the last to interview Levi, explains why we shouldn't confuse Levi the writer with Levi the man. Producer: Lizz Pearson