Levi's memoir beats Darwin to win science book title http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1927916,00.html James Randerson, science correspondent Saturday October 21, 2006 The Guardian Primo Levi's haunting memoir of life as a Jew in Mussolini's Italy told through the unlikely metaphor of chemistry has been named the best science book ever written. The Periodic Table, published in 1975, fought off competition from Richard Dawkins, DNA legend James Watson, Tom Stoppard, Bertolt Brecht and Charles Darwin to win the vote at an event organised by the Royal Institution in London. "This book pinions my awareness to the solidity of the world around me," said former Guardian science editor Tim Radford, who was the book's advocate at the event. "The science book is the ultimate in non-fiction," he told the Guardian's weekly science podcast. "You've got the entire universe and the entire sub-atomic world to choose from and everything that has happened in it." .................................................... 关於Primo Levi http://books.guardian.co.uk/authors/author/0,,96564,00.html PRIMO LEVI (1919-1987) "I am a normal man with a good memory who fell into a maelstrom and got out of it more by luck than by virtue, and who from that time on has preserved a certain curiosity about maelstroms large and small, metaphorical and actual." Birthplace Turin, Italy Education University of Turin (chemistry) Other jobs He worked as a chemist ("I am a chemist by conviction"), and after the war managed a paint factory before becoming a full-time writer. Did you know? Levi never removed the number tattooed on his arm at Auschwitz; it was engraved on his headstone. Critical verdict Auschwitz "was what turned me into a writer": "I had an absolute need to write. Not only as a moral duty, but as a psychological need." Levi's memoir on his return was rejected by several publishers; brought out by a small press, it swiftly disappeared and only found an audience as recently as 1958, when it was republished. Levi continued to bear witness with his relation of the journey home, The Truce; he also concentrated on tales of heroism and, with The Drowned and the Saved, reviewed history's perceptions of the Holocaust. But he found himself to be a fiction writer too: The Sixth Day and The Mirror Maker approach science fiction and philosophy, while The Periodic Table transcends genre. As Saul Bellow said, "There is nothing superfluous here, everything this book contains is essential" - both content and style. Recommended works The Periodic Table - autobiography, scientific meditation, humanist philosophy - is astonishing in every genre. Influences The combination in his writing style of the simplicity of fable and utter precision of a grammarian is similar to Calvino. Now read on Other notable Holocaust memoirs include Elie Wiesel's Night and Victor Klemperer's I Will Bear Witness. Adaptations The Truce was filmed by Francesco Rosi as La Tregua in 1996. Recommended biography Ferdinando Camon has published his Conversations with Primo Levi. 2002 saw two lives, by Ian Thomson and Carole Angier. --

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