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PEOPLE & ARTSFriday 2 October 2015
3,000-page Primo Levi anthology
includes Toni Morrison intro
In this Friday, Nov. 21, 2014 file photo, comedian Bill Cosby per- HILLEL ITALIE and noble endeavor.” Within three weeks, Morri-
forms at the Maxwell C. King Center for the Performing Arts, in AP National Writer Estimating that he has de- son changed her mind.
Melbourne, Fla. NEW YORK (AP) — The voted more than 6,000 “She was hugely enthused
fall’s most ambitious liter- emails to the Levi project, about his writings,” Weil
Associated Press ary release took 17 years to Weil brought in a wide said.
complete, runs more than range of collaborators. To Levi, born in 1919, was a
L. A. prosecutors 3000 pages, draws upon oversee the new transla- promising young chemist
reviewing case the talents of more than a tions and work on some and member of an anti-
against Bill Cosby dozen translators and has of the books, he recruited Fascist organization when
a list price of $100. New Yorker editor Ann arrested late in 1943 and
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los to statutes of limitations. It also features an introduc- Goldstein, already known the following February
Angeles prosecutors are Goins was the second tion from Nobel laureate to many readers for her stuffed by the Nazis with
reviewing an investigation woman to meet with Los Toni Morrison. English-language editions hundreds of others on a
into a model’s accusa- Angeles police detec- “The Complete Works of of the novels of Elena Fer- train to Auschwitz. “At Aus-
tions that Bill Cosby sexually tives to detail accusations Primo Levi” is a 3-volume rante. Other contributors chwitz I became a Jew,”
abused her at the Playboy against Cosby. set of writings by the late include authors Simon Rich he would recall. “The con-
Mansion, an official said Prosecutors rejected fil- Italian author and Aus- and Jenny McPhee, and, sciousness of feeling differ-
Thursday. ing charges against Cos- chwitz survivor whose for Levi’s poetry, Jonathan ent was forced upon me.”
District attorney’s spokes- by based on allegations memoir “If This is a Man” Galassi, the president and Russian troops liberated
woman Jane Robison said by Judy Huth, a Riverside remains a standard work publisher of Farrar, Straus & Auschwitz early in 1945 and
Thursday that police detec- County resident who is su- of Holocaust literature. The after months in a Soviet
tives presented evidence ing the comedian, alleg- anthology was conceived This cover image released by transit camp Levi returned
Wednesday afternoon for ing he abused her in the in 1998 by W.W. Norton & Liveright Publishing Corpora- to Turin, where he soon
a possible criminal case. early 1970s when she was Company executive editor tion shows “The Complete began writing “If This is a
There’s no timetable for 15 years old. Huth’s law- Robert Weil, who had had Works of Primo Levi,” edited Man.” The book was pub-
when a decision will be suit also states the abuse surprising success with a by Ann Goldstein. lished in Italy in 1947, but
made on whether to happened at the Playboy two-volume compilation of took more than a decade
charge the comedian, and Mansion. Russian author Isaac Babel Associated Press to find an international au-
it is unclear what charges Huth’s claims were reject- and thought Levi a worthy Giroux and a leading trans- dience, only reaching the
could be filed. ed for a criminal case be- follow-up. lator of Italian verse. United States in 1959.
Model Chloe Goins met cause the statute of limita- “But if the publisher had Morrison’s participation Over the last quarter cen-
with detectives in January tions had expired. known back in 1998 how wasn’t planned when tury of his life, Levi was ac-
and has accused Cosby of Cosby, 78, is scheduled to long this would take I Weil thought of the Levi claimed for the force and
drugging her and accost- be deposed in that case would never have gotten anthology and came clarity of his prose, for the
ing her in a bedroom of Oct. 9. it approved,” Weil said dur- about through a conver- welding of lyricism, wis-
the Playboy Mansion in Au- Fallout from the allegations ing a recent interview. sation in early 2014 with dom, imagination and
gust 2008, but the come- against Cosby continues, Levi was world famous at Harold Augenbraum, ex- logic. He proved gifted
dian’s lawyer has denied with the University of San the time of his death (wide- ecutive director of the not just at nonfiction, but
the claims, saying Cosby Francisco, a Jesuit Catholic ly believed a suicide), in National BookFoundation, poetry, short fiction and
wasn’t in Los Angeles at school, revoking an honor- 1987, but his work in the which presents the Nation- with such novels as “The
the time. ary degree it presented to U.S. suffered from the ran- al Book Awards. Augen- Wrench” and “If Not Now,
An email seeking comment Cosby in 2012. The school dom treatment given to braum recommended that When?” In “The Periodic
from Cosby’s attorney, announced the decision so many foreign-language Weil contact the author of Table,” he told the story
Marty Singer, was not im- Wednesday, the same day authors. At least seven “Beloved” and “The Bluest of his life through chapters
mediately returned. Brown University revoked publishers had rights to var- Eye” and other novels, cit- dedicated to gold, silver
Cosby has been accused a doctorate of humane ious editions and the qual- ing her singular gift for cap- and other elements.
by dozens of women of letters it granted Cosby in ity of translations was errat- turing “the human cost of In her introduction to the
sexual misconduct, but 1985, and days after Ford- ic enough that new trans- holocaust,” he told The As- complete works, Morrison
most of their claims are ham and Marquette uni- lations were commissioned sociated Press in a recent notes that “The triumph of
barred from being filed as versities rescinded degrees for virtually all of the books. email. human identity and worth
civil or criminal cases due they bestowed to Cosby.q Many stories and poems According to Weil, Mor- over the pathology of hu-
had never been collected rison initially turned him man destruction glows vir-
in English before. down because she had tually everywhere in Levi’s
Literary works in general other writing commitments. writing.”
depend on critics’ support Weil responded by send- “Primo Levi understands
and strong reviews are es- ing Morrison a package of evil as not only banal but
pecially vital for “The Com- Levi books, plus an essay unworthy of our insight —
plete Works of Primo Levi,” he had written about him. even of our intelligence,
which like a 4-hour movie for it reveals nothing inter-
needs to be regarded as esting or compelling about
something extraordinary, itself,” Morrison writes. “It
as an event. So far, review- has merely size to solicit
ers have duly applauded. our attention and an alien
The Washington Post’s Mi- stench to repel or impress
chael Dirda praised it as us. For this articulate sur-
“old-school publishing on a vivor, individual identity is
grand scale,” while James supreme; efforts to drown
Wood of The New Yorker identity inevitably become
called it a “monumental futile.”q
