Join us on November 2, at 6:30 pm, with the author, Sam Magavern, to discuss his new book, Primo Levi's Universe: A Writer's Journey.
About the book
Primo Levi is best known for his memoir, Survival in Auschwitz, but he was also a scientist, fiction writer, and poet: a Renaissance man who did not want to be known exclusively as a Holocaust writer. Using Levi's own words as a springboard, Sam Magavern offers here, for the first time, a multi-faceted portrait of the man - as a writer. By exploring all of Levi's writings—including his short stories, poems, his delightful novels about blue-collar workers—Magavern introduces us to a talented writer who had a profound love of humanity, a sharp wit, a passion for his profession as a chemist—a man inspired by a variety of things beyond his Holocaust experience. Magavern brings a fresh, personal sensibility to the way we think about Levi and produces a hybrid book—part life story and part literary biography, finally doing justice to the man's calm rationality and essential beliefs.
About the Author
Sam Magavern is a writer and public interest lawyer. He co-directs the Partnership for the Public Good while teaching at the University at Buffalo Law School and the Cornell University ILR School. He has written in a wide variety of genres - poetry, fiction, film, scholarly essays, and comic books - and published in many of the nation's leading literary magazines, including Poetry, The Antioch Review, and The Paris Review.
His new book is Primo Levi's Universe, a literary biography that has been hailed as "elegant," "remarkable," and "exemplary." His website is www.sammagavern.com.