Primo Levi (1919-87) has been recognized as the foremost literary witness of the extermination of the European Jews. In this biography, Marco Belpoliti explores Levi's tormented life, his trajectory as a writer and intellectual, and, above all, his multifaceted and complex oeuvre. Organized in a mosaic format, this volume devotes a different chapter to each of Levi's books. In addition to tracing the history of each book's composition, publication and literary influences, Belpoliti explores their contents across the many worlds of Levi: from chemistry to anthropology, biology to ethology, space flights to linguistics. We learn of dreams, animals and travel; of literary writing, comedy and tragedy; of shame, memory and the relationship with other writers such as Franz Kafka and Georges Perec, Jean Améry and Variant Shalamov. This is the definitive book on Primo Levi, a treasure trove of stories and reflections that paint a rich composite portrait of one of the twentieth century's most unique voices.