The Monkey's Wrench
New York: Penguin Books, 1995. Item #1550 8vo. 195 x 130 mm., [7 ¾ x 5 inches]. 171, [4] pp., with one leaf of ads at the end. Publishers’ illustrated softcover wrapper. Book is Near Fine: minor soiling and wear on the wrapper but overall an attractive copy with a clean text block. Second Penguin Edition. Primo Levi (1919-1987) was an Italian chemist and writer. His first and best-known work If This Is a Man (1947) is an autobiographical account detailing his experiences as a prisoner at Auschwitz. He would go on to publish several essays, short-story collections, poetry and novels. The Monkey’s Wrench was originally published in 1978 in Italian as La chiave a stella and was translated into English here by William Weaver. It tells the story of two men, one a construction worker and the other a writer-chemist, swapping tales about their lives and their relationships with their own work. It is semi-autobiographical and thought to be one of Levi’s most lighthearted and playful novels.
Price: $15.00