Dear friends, Writing as what follows may be of interest:
More than fifteen years ago, Bob Weil, commissioning editor at W.W. Norton, started what seemed like a hopelessly ambitious project. Now published, *The Complete Works of Primo Levi* , edited by Ann Goldstein (Liveright Publishing | W.W. Norton) and with an introduction by Toni Morrison, has sparked a reappraisal of Primo Levi’s life and work, not only as a witness to the twentieth century’s greatest horror, but as one of its greatest writers. It’s a major accomplishment that stands out as one of the literary triumphs of the year and is featured on the cover of this week’s *New York Times Book Review*. What with the glowing reviews at the *The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Atlantic *and* The New York Review of Books*, it heralds a literary coronation of the first order. May I humbly suggest that HaSafran members may have their own unique perspective to offer on the matter, via libraries, schools and communities. As every generation will, of course, read Primo Levi in its own way, who better than you to help us parse Mr. Levi’s coronation in the context of “Jewish literature” circa 2015? From Jewish secularism and Zionism, to the nature of moral legitimacy and what it means to be a 'Jewish author' (or reader), the issues involved could not be more presently relevant - as testified to by the roar of the crowd. Below is a little more on the project, blurbs from Toni Morrison and Cynthia Ozick, and publication details. If you'd care to pursue this, please let me know. Warmest, Suzanne Balaban President, BMM Worldwide *ABOUT THE COMPLETE WORKS OF PRIMO LEVI:* Primo Levi, who died prematurely in Turin in 1987, was a gentle and exceptionally self-effacing man, who by all accounts never sought the spotlight. Yet these volumes—whether through gossamer style, astonishing psychological perception, storytelling genius, or historical documentation—reflect the monumentality of Levi’s literary achievements and position “that quicksilver little woodland creature” [Philip Roth] not merely as a Holocaust memoirist but as one of the most profound and enduring writers of the twentieth century. Since Levi’s books, beginning in 1959, were published piecemeal in often chaotic fashion in the United States by six separate publishers, Ann Goldstein, the* New Yorker *editor who has heroically edited and overseen this entire project, commissioned new translations from a team of ten translators, so that *The Complete Works* now follow in form, substance, and chronology the Italian Opere, first published by Einaudi, Levi’s Italian publisher in 1997. 13 of Levi’s 14 volumes have been retranslated, while *If This Is a Man* has been revised by Stuart Woolf himself, Levi’s first English translator. The 3000 pages that make up *The Complete Works *abound in surprises, not least the new translations themselves. They contain nearly one quarter of material that has never before appeared in English. *The Complete Works *includes all new translations of *The Truce * Natural Histories * Flaw of Form * The Periodic Table * The Wrench * Lilith and Other Stories * If Not Now, When? * Collected Poems * Other People’s Trades * The Drowned and the Saved,* as well as Levi’s first book, *If This Is a Man*. It also includes all of Levi’s essays and other nonfiction work, some of which has never appeared before in English. The translators include (in addition to Ann Goldstein) Stuart Woolf, Jonathan Galassi, Jenny McPhee, Nathaniel Rich, Alessandra Bastagli and Francesco Bastagli, Antony Shugaar, Anne Milano Appel, and Michael F. Moore. “Levi, a scientist and deep humanist, vividly comes alive in this boxed set. A laudable, monumental effort to gather the work of a crucial writer of the 20th century in one voluminous package.” —*Kirkus Reviews*, starred review "The Complete Works of Primo Levi is an act that transfigures publishing into conscience at its most sublime.” —Cynthia Ozick “The triumph of human identity and worth over the pathology of human destruction glows virtually everywhere in Levi’s writing. . . .Time and time again we are moved by his narratives of how men refuse erasure.” —Toni Morrison, from the introduction *ABOUT THE AUTHOR:* PRIMO LEVI (1919–1987) was an Italian chemist and writer, best known for his memoirs If This Is a Man and The Periodic Table. ANN GOLDSTEIN, the translator of Elena Ferrante’s novels, is an editor at *The New Yorker *and a recipient of a PEN Renato Poggioli Translation Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. TONI MORRISON is a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. TITLE: THE COMPLETE WORKS OF PRIMO LEVI AUTHOR: Primo Levi PAGES: 3,008 (over three volumes) PRICE: $100 ISBN: 978-087140-456- Suzanne Balaban President, BMM Worldwide LLC [email protected] http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/members/BMMWorldwide/ http://www.bmmworldwide.com/ New York/Global: 212 796 5895 | Jerusalem: 058 644 8326 BMM Worldwide co/Levine Plotkin & Menin 888 Seventh Avenue New York, NY 10106 >From Liveright | W.W. Norton & Company, Ltd Edited by Ann Goldstein. The Complete Works of Primo Levi <http://books.wwnorton.com/books/The-Complete-Works-of-Primo-Levi/> <http://www.amazon.com/The-Complete-Works-Primo-Levi/dp/0871404567>
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