If Not Now, When?
“The sea of grief has no shores, no bottom; no one can sound its depths": First Edition of Primo Levi's If Not Now, When?; Signed by Him
If Not Now, When?
LEVI, Primo.
$3,800.00
Item Number: 72019
New York: Summit Books, 1982.
First edition in English of Levi’s novel based on a true story. Octavo, original half cloth. Boldly signed by Primo Levi on the title page. Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Carin Goldberg. Translated from the Italian by William Weaver. Introduction by Irving Howe.
First published in 1982 in Italian, "If Not Now, When" follows a courageous band of Jewish partisans making their way from Russia to Italy, moving toward the ultimate goal of Palestine. The novel captures the landscape and the people of Eastern Europe in vivid detail, depicting as well the terrible bleakness of war-ridden Europe. The title is taken from a well-known rabbinical saying attributed to Hillel the Elder: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am for myself, what am 'I'? And if not now, when?"
