Background
Carlo Levi was born on the 29th of November, 1902, in Turin, Italy.
Carlo Levi was born on the 29th of November, 1902, in Turin, Italy.
Carlo Levi took a degree in medicine at the University of Turin in 1924, but in the years immediately following dedicated himself to painting. Although he received a degree in medicine, he never practiced medicine.
Levi was a painter and a practicing physician when he was exiled in 1935–36 to the southern district of Lucania for anti-Fascist activities. He wrote of the experience in Cristo si è fermato a Eboli in 1945 (Christ Stopped at Eboli), which reflects the visual sensitivity of a painter and the compassionate objectivity of a doctor.
Though Levi’s first novel is unquestionably his masterpiece, he wrote other important works. His Paura della libertà in 1946 (Of Fear and Freedom) proclaims the necessity of intellectual freedom despite an inherent human dread of it, L’orologio in 1950 (The Watch) deals with a postwar cabinet crisis in Rome, Le parole sono pietre in 1955 (Words Are Stones) is a study of Sicily, and La doppia notte dei tigli in 1959 (The Linden Trees, or The Two-Fold Night) is a presentation of postwar Germany.
Levi directed a periodical in Florence for a time and contributed to several other magazines. Later he devoted himself to painting.
Levi was an active anti-Fascist and his political convictions led him into jouralism.