普里莫·莱维 (Primo Levi，1919—1987) 意大利最重要的作家、化学家以及奥斯维辛174517号囚犯，这两种身份与经历建立了他写作的基础。 莱维1919年出生于意大利都灵，1944年因参与反法西斯运动被捕，后被遣送至奥斯维辛集中营。战争结束后，他回到故 乡都灵生活。1987年自杀身亡。他的作品曾被选入意大利语文教材，涉及诗歌、小说、回忆录等各个领域。著有《活在奥斯维辛》（Survival in Auschwitz）、《再度觉醒》(The Reawakening)、《缓刑时刻》(Moments of Reprieve)、《元素周期表》(The Periodic Table)、《如果不是现在，那么何时？》(If Not Now, When?)、《猴子的忧伤》(The Monkey’s Wrench)等。《被淹没和被拯救的》（The Drowned and the Saved）是他生前完成的最后一部著作。

Shortly after completing THE DROWNED AND THE SAVED, Primo Levi committed suicide. The matter of his death was sudden, violent and unpremiditated, and there were some who argue that he killed himself because he was tormented by guilt - guilt that he had survived the horrors of Auschwitz while others, better than he, had gone to the wall. THE DROWNED AND THE SAVED is Levi's impassioned attempt to understand the 'rationale' behind the concentration camps, was completed shortly before his tragic death in 1987. THE DROWNED AND THE SAVED dispels the myth that Primo Levi forgave the Germans for what they did to his people. He didn't and couldn't forgive. He refused, however, to indulge in what he called 'the bestial vice of hatred' which is an entirely different matter. The voice that sounds in his writing is that of a reasonable man...it warns and reminds us that the unimaginable can happen again. A would-be tyrant is waiting in the wings, with 'beautiful words' on his lips. The book is constantly impressing on us the need to learn from the past, to make sense of the senseless' PAUL BAILEY