Levi's clear-eyed, scientific, humane prose refuses both sentimentality and despair. He observes Auschwitz with the discipline of a chemist, and the horror is all the more complete for the restraint. Published in Italy in 1947, initially by a tiny press, it is the most important firsthand account of the Holocaust written as literature.

The case for it, the case against, and the rest of the canon open with Pro.