A Man of Few Words

About the Book

‘Nobody knows how much I owe that man,’ Primo Levi said of the bricklayer who saved his life at Auschwitz. ‘I could never repay him.’

Levi was referring to Lorenzo Perrone, who for six months risked his own life to smuggle food, clothing and letters to Levi and other prisoners. Without Perrone, Levi could not have survived to write If This Is a Man, one of the most influential memoirs by a Holocaust survivor.

In A Man of Few Words, Carlo Greppi pieces together the life of Perrone, a near-destitute labourer with little formal education, who left almost no trace of his own. Despite their differences, Levi and Perrone’s friendship endured long after the war, even as Perrone withdrew from the world. Levi never stopped trying to preserve the memory of his friend who has saved his life.

Compassionate, clear-eyed and deeply humane, this is the story of an ordinary man whose extraordinary courage kept hope alive in one of history’s darkest places.

About the Author

About the Translator

Howard Curtis is a British translator of French, Italian and Spanish fiction. He has translated the works of Gianrico Carofiglio, Luis Sepúlveda, Beppe Fenoglio and Georges Simenon, among others, and has won the John Florio Prize and the Premio Campiello Europa for his translations.

Reviews

‘Greppi’s biography of this elusive figure is intriguing … Greppi suggests that Perrone’s untutored altruism answers the deepest question of Levi’s oeuvre: what it means to be human. Because Perrone’s solidarity had neither motive nor reason. It was simply instinctive. And there’s something beautifully poetic in the fact that such instinct was revealed through a man who was so simple and so troubled.’
The Observer

‘Greppi’s biography, from start to finish a marvel of sympathetic insight, is a valuable addition to Levi’s writings on the human infamy that was Auschwitz.’
Times Literary Supplement

‘This is a great book: scrupulously researched and superbly written.’
Ian Thomson

‘A thoroughly moving read. Out of utter degradation, this inspiring story emerges to remind us that the spark of human decency can never be crushed.’
Julia Boyd

‘A story for all stories: Greppi has rescued it from oblivion .. Inch by inch, Lorenzo Perrone has taken a little bit of evil out of the world.’
Rolling Stone

‘Sheds light on an unsung hero … a fluent retelling.’
The Jewish Chronicle

‘Levi’s greatest piece of luck in Auschwitz was meeting Lorenzo, who kept him alive when he was hanging on to life by a thread.’
Literary Review

’Perrone, though an unreligious man, was something of a saint. This book is the commemoration he deserves.’
Times Literary Supplement

‘An important book ... Knowing about this man from humble beginnings who did an extraordinary thing should remind us of the others lost to history. If for that reason alone, read this book.’
The Historian