'I've drunk at various founts and breathed different airs, some salutary, other quite polluted . . . I'm a normal man with a good memory who fell into a maelstrom and got out of it more by luck than by virtue, and who from that time on has preserved a certain curiosity about maelstroms large and small, metaphorical and actual'Primo Levi'To be welcomed and savoured for its unique range and tone. The articles, stories and poems collected in The Mirror Maker, all written for La Stampa during the last years of his life, show a man of undiminished curiosity and delicious sly humour. Perpetually questioning, witty and wise, Levi is one of those who has done something to redeem the century in which he lived and died'Claire Tomalin, Independent on Sunday'It is essentially the same voice speaking here as in all of Levi's work: the beautifully eloquent voice of a beautiful and supreme reasonableness'Financial Times'A further opportunity to appreciate Levi's penetrating yet quizzical vision of the awesome universe we inhabit and of Auschwitz, its perverse microcosm'TLS'One of the most important and gifted writers of our time'Italo Calvino