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‘Nobody knows how much I owe that man,’ Primo Levi said of the bricklayer who saved his life in Auschwitz. For six months, Lorenzo Perrone risked his own life to smuggle food, letters and clothing to prisoners. Without Perrone, Levi would not have survived the death camp – and the world would have been deprived of his writing.
In A Man of Few Words, award-winning historian Carlo Greppi pieces together the life of Perrone, a near-destitute labourer with little formal education. Despite their starkly different circumstances, Perrone and Levi forged a friendship that endured beyond the Holocaust, until Perrone’s tragic death. Levi never forgot him, returning again and again to the memory of the man who had saved his life but left few traces of his own.
Compassionate, clear-eyed and deeply humane, Greppi’s account brings to light a universal story of quiet courage – of one individual who kept hope alive in one of the darkest places and times in human history.
Price: $17.95
Pages: 256
Publisher: Saqi Books
Imprint: Saqi Books
Publication Date:
04 May 2027
ISBN: 9781908906656
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
HISTORY / Modern / 20th Century / Holocaust, The Holocaust, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Historical, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Survival, HISTORY / Europe / Italy
‘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
‘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
‘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
‘This is a great book: scrupulously researched and superbly written.’
— Ian Thomson
— 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
‘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
‘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
‘This is a great book: scrupulously researched and superbly written.’
— Ian Thomson
Carlo Greppi is an award-winning historian and author. He is the author of fourteen books, including Un uomo di poche parole (A Man of Few Words), which has been translated into six languages and sold more than 20,000 copies in Italy.