If This Is a Man / The Truce cover art

If This Is a Man / The Truce

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

If This Is a Man / The Truce

By: Primo Levi, Stuart Woolf - translator
Narrated by: Henry Goodman
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Translated by Stuart Woolf.

'With the moral stamina and intellectual poise of a twentieth-century Titan, this slightly built, dutiful, unassuming chemist set out systematically to remember the German hell on earth, steadfastly to think it through, and then to render it comprehensible in lucid, unpretentious prose. He was profoundly in touch with the minutest workings of the most endearing human events and with the most contemptible. What has survived in Levi's writing isn't just his memory of the unbearable, but also, in The Periodic Table and The Wrench, his delight in what made the world exquisite to him. He was himself a magically endearing man, the most delicately forceful enchanter I've ever known.' (Philip Roth)

©2014 Primo Levi (P)2014 Hachette Audio
Biographies & Memoirs World Heartfelt Inspiring Thought-Provoking
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Periodic Table cover art
Inside the Gas Chambers cover art
Outcry: Holocaust Memoirs cover art
The Yellow Star cover art
A Certain Idea of France cover art
David Attenborough - Life on Air cover art
They Shall Not Have Me cover art
Five Chimneys cover art
The Nuremberg Interviews cover art
The Tin Ring cover art
Here There Is No Why cover art
Beyond the Last Path cover art
The Long Road Home cover art
Orwell: The Essays cover art
Waiting for the Barbarians cover art
I Escaped from Auschwitz cover art

Critic reviews

"The death of Primo Levi robs Italy of one of its finest writers...One of the few survivors of the Holocaust to speak of his experiences with a gentle voice." ( The Guardian)
"A life-changing book." ( Daily Express
"One of the greatest human testaments of the era." (Philip Roth)

What listeners say about If This Is a Man / The Truce

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    333
  • 4 Stars
    52
  • 3 Stars
    14
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    296
  • 4 Stars
    38
  • 3 Stars
    15
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    2
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    293
  • 4 Stars
    44
  • 3 Stars
    12
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A book everyone should read, with great narration

An outstanding autobiography, written very matter of factly but with beautiful emotion. I find that most books written about the holocaust put a lot of focus on the perpetrators, while this is a very human and very sad recollection of Levi's time in the camp which dwells on his story and those of the other remarkable people around him.
It is a book which I always recommend to others as it is not only an interesting history but a beautifully written one.

The narrator conveys the at times quite detached way in which Levi writes, but also brings great emotion when appropriate.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Powerfully moving

The story of one man of many's ordeal. Important that we still keep remembering and learning so that we don't allow hatred of a race to decimate the world again.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Superb

If you only read/listen to one book about the Holocaust, let it be this one. Honest, measured, humane, beautifully observed and written. Also read The Truce, the story of Primo Levi’s return journey home. These books are for everyone - they were set texts for my undergrad students, who always appreciated them. This audible version is excellent - Henry Goodman’s narration is superb. Primo Levi added a postscript that answered frequently-asked questions; it would have been helpful for many listeners if that afterword were also included in this audio version.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

a must read. perfect complement to 'night' by Visel

amazing shocking testement of the holocaust. with the extra bonus of getting to know Primo, the most hypnotic scientist and humanitarian Italian.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Everyone must read this book and know the truth x

Everyone must read this book to understand what happened from the perspective of a good and honest man, at times this is very hard to listen to, but a story like this is not meant to be enjoyable, it is meant to let us collectively remember, so we always know this is wrong, and there is joy in knowing you do not have to experience such atrocities x

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Full humanity

Great performance by Henry Goodman. Feeling the pain and the truce. Tragic history one of millions untold.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great stuff

What made the experience of listening to If This Is a Man / The Truce the most enjoyable?

The story, the narration was excellent also.
You get two books in one here. One in the camp, then the second the journey from being liberated To his home.
I thought I would not enjoy the second part as much, but it turned out to be so interesting, especially because of the schemes and tricks they use to survive.

What was one of the most memorable moments of If This Is a Man / The Truce?

For me it was when he goes to the markets in Poland to get eggs and tries to impress someone with a trick.

What does Henry Goodman bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

Not sure, I think I would have pronounced some of the names wrong.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The whole book is quite moving. It's also funny, so don't assume this book is completely depressing.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

powerful and absorbing.

A very moving and powerful account, beautifully read, and in which there is much to reflect on.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

More relevant now than ever

An important reminder of the brutality of man, especially as the world flirts with the right wing once more. Have we not learnt our lessons from history? Never again.

Such bravery in the face of such extreme adversity. Wonderfully told. A must add to your audio library.






Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Speechless, spellbound, and stupefied

I am actually at a loss for words (rare!). This is book can be described technically, factually, literally, and so on, but words don't injustice.

Please please please just do yourself and all of humanity a massive favour and read it. On one level Primo predicted a lot of things including current events (as of December 2023) in the middle East. As he taught me in the book, it's not to take sides but to understand how the darkness within man can so easily be uh unleashed, even without their own explicit knowledge.

Peace and love to all beings. May you have a peaceful and happy Life

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!