Penguin Modern Classics: The Search For Roots

'The Search For Roots' is an anthology of writings that Primo Levi considered to be essential reading. Fiction, poetry, science, philosophy and traveller's tales are to be found among these thirty pieces, each with an introduction by Levi.

He presents familiar voices - Swift, Conrad, TS Eliot and Arthur C Clarke - and introduces us to less familiar ones: Lucretius, Giuseppe Belli, Fredric Brown and Hermann Langbein. All reflect Levi's deep passion for literature, his profound knowledge of science, and his survival of Auschwitz, making it a collection that is both universal and poignantly autobiographical.