Kirjahaku

Primo Levi was perhaps the most humane and eloquent writer of testimony to emerge from the Nazi Holocaust. But he also went beyond testimony in his work, tackling many of the founding ethical questions of what it is to be human, 'how to live'. Whether in accounts of the concentration camps, essays, science-fiction, autobiography, poetry, or fiction, he always approached his writing with a questioning, ethically open and alert eye. This book explores the extraordinary depth of Levi the ethical writer across his entire oeuvre for the first time, by way of thirteen so-called 'ordinary virtues', that is the ways and means Levi forges for practically and compassionately engaging with the world. It draws on a wide range of recent thinking about Holocaust literature and the general relationship between literature and ethics. From the book a new understanding of Levi's importance as both witness and writer emerges, enhancing his status as one of the key literary figures of the twentieth century.

Bicycle Thieves (Ladri di biciclette, 1948) is unarguably one of the most important films in the history of cinema. It is also one of the most beguiling, moving and (apparently) simple pieces of narrative ever made. The film tells the story of one man and his son, as they search fruitlessly through the streets of Rome for his stolen bicycle; the bicycle which had offered the possibility of escape from the poverty and humiliation of long-term unemployment. One of a cluster of extraordinary films to come out of post-war, post-Fascist Italy - loosely labelled 'neorealist' – Bicycle Thieves won an Oscar in 1949, topped the first Sight and Sound poll of the best films of all time in 1952 and has been hugely influential throughout world cinema ever since. It remains a necessary point of reference for any cinematic engagement with the labyrinthine experience of the modern city, the travails of poverty in the contemporary world, the complex bond between fathers and sons, and the capacity of the camera to capture something like the essence of all of these. Robert S. C. Gordon's BFI Film Classics volume shows how Bicycle Thieves is ripe for re-viewing, for rescuing from its worthy status as a neorealist 'classic'. It looks at the film's drawn-out planning and production history, the vibrant and riven context in which it was made, and the dynamic geography, geometry and sociology of the film that resulted. ROBERT S. C. GORDON is Reader in Modern Italian Culture, Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge, UK.