| Author |
Levi, Primo |
| Year |
2008 |
| First published |
2007 |
| Publisher |
New York and London: Norton |
| Number of pages |
162 |
| Edition |
First US Paperback |
| ISBN |
9780393331615 |
| Keywords |
chemistry, literary or mainstream, FMS Library Book |
Abstract
These seventeen stories, first published in Italian between 1949 and
1986, demonstrate Levi's extraordinary range, taking the reader from the
primal resistance of a captured partisan fighter to a middle-aged
chemist experimenting with a new paint that wards off evil, to the
lustful thoughts of an older man obsessed with a mysterious woman in a
seaside villa. In the title story, Levi demonstrates his unerringly
tragic understanding of the fragility of the universe through the tale
of a pensive astronomer, terrified by the possibility that a
long-dormant star might explode and reduce the entire planet to vapor. (W. W. Norton)
