Primo Levi (1919–1987) - Italian writer, poet and publicist, chemist by training. At twenty-four he was deported to a concentration camp. Knowledge of the German language, the Nazis' need for professional chemists, albeit of Jewish nationality, youth and, perhaps, a happy fate helped Levi survive. Immediately after his release, he wrote the book “Is This a Man?”, considering it his duty to the dead and the uninitiated to bear witness to the atrocities of the Nazis. In Western post-war culture, P. Levy occupies no less a place than A. Solzhenitsyn in Russian, and his most significant work, “Is this a Man?” critics compare it with One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. In Italy, Primo Levi's book Is This a Man? was named the book of the century.