Book Launch - The Occasional Demon by Primo Levi

Unity Books Wellington, Ambasciata d’Italia, Marco Sonzogni & The Cuba Press warmly invite you to celebrate the launch of 'The Occasional Demon' by Primo Levi, a limited edition of Primo Levi’s poetry in both Italian and English to mark the centenary of his birth, translated by Marco Sonzogni & Harry Thomas.

About the book
Primo Levi (1919–1987) was a chemist, writer and translator. On 22 February 1944 Levi and 650 other Jews were packed into a train bound for Auschwitz. Registered as no. 174517, Levi was taken to the Buna-Monowitz concentration camp, known at the time as Auschwitz III, and remained there until the camp was liberated by the Soviet Army on 27 January 1945. Best known for his Holocaust memoir, If This is a Man (Se questo è un uomo, 1947), and The Periodic Table (Il sistema periodico, 1975), named by the Royal Institution of Great Britain as the best science book of all time, Levi was also the author of a novel, short stories, essays and poems written between his return from the camps in 1946 and his death in 1987.

The Occasional Demon is a limited edition of 36 of Levi’s poems in both Italian and English to mark the centenary of his birth.

About the translators:
Marco Sonzogni (Italy), scholar, translator, poet and editor, lives in Wellington, New Zealand.
Harry Thomas (USA), poet, translator, critic and editor, lives in San Diego.