When I was 9 years old, I lost an important school assignment. I knew I needed help, but I was too embarrassed to ask my parents. I felt a strong urge to pray, but I did not believe in God, much less St. Anthony, the patron saint of lost things. That is how, one night before bed, I found myself composing a short prayer to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, because they were the most heroic and beneficent figures I knew.

Over the years, my pantheon has changed. It still includes Washington and Lincoln, but superheroes like the Green Lantern and Spiderman have faded, replaced by figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. Since I love books, I have literary heroes like Elizabeth Bishop and I. B. Singer. Since I love songs, I have musical heroes like Bob Dylan and George Clinton. I don’t ask them for supernatural favors, but I

do look to them for inspiration.

Recently, I added a new hero to my pantheon, the Italian author Primo Levi. It happened somewhat by accident. I was writing a novel about a group of law students. For various reasons, I decided to have one character, Maggie Gee, become fascinated by Levi and his enigmatic death in 1987 — a fall down a stairwell that may or may not have been suicide.

I had read several of Levi’s books before, but now I became enthralled, reading every word I could find. Levi was well-known— mainly for his memoirs of the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz — but I came to think that the world had not fully appreciated his literary gifts. Levi was a renaissance man who wrote passionate poems, intriguing science fiction stories and nonfiction about everything from beetles to submarines. I decided to write an essay about him, and, before I knew it, that essay had grown into a book.

What I find so appealing about Levi is that he achieved greatness without sacrificing his decency, humility and wit. He never wanted to be, and never became, larger than life. He lived simply — in the same apartment in Turin where he was born — and enjoyed drinking wine, hiking in the mountains and talking with old friends. He worked for many years as a chemist in a paint factory, even as he gained international renown.

Levi, who would have turned 90 today, suffered a central evil of our time at Auschwitz. His heroism included not just the bravery and ingenuity he used to survive the camp, but also the way he used his experiences there to explore what it means to be a human. He concluded that our humanity is fragile; it can be destroyed; and we must be vigilant to avoid getting turned into beasts or things.

Levi himself was a fragile man, prone to severe depression. He was no saint in his personal life (he had several affairs) or his professional life (his factory had problems with pollution and worker safety). But he was acutely aware of his flaws, and he vehemently rejected the role of prophet. To be fully human, he thought, was an arduous enough battle. His keen perception of human frailty — starting with his own — was the core of his greatness.

And so I do not pray to Primo Levi to help me find lost assignments, as I once asked Washington and Lincoln. I don’t expect him to do miracles. But I do rely on him to help me think. He has become part of my constellation of heroes—those stars that help to illuminate the dark night and show us the way forward.