Woolf was born and grew up in
London, in an orthodox Jewish family, the youngest of three sons of Adolph Woolf (1898-1983), a furrier, and Regina Woolf (née Frei, 1907-1996), a native of
Metz who grew up in
Luxembourg. His eldest brother Cyril became a physician and emigrated to
Canada; another brother, David, became a scholar of Italian literature at the
Australian National University. Woolf was married to the former Anna Debenedetti (b. 1931), whom he met while doing his thesis research in Italy. They married in 1959 and had one child, Deborah Clare, in 1963. It was through this family connection that he became acquainted with
Auschwitz survivor and
the Holocaust author
Primo Levi whose books
If This Is a Man (United States title:
Survival in Auschwitz) and
The Truce (titled
The Reawakening in the US) he translated into English with Levi's agreement and collaboration. These are among the most widely-read insider accounts of the Holocaust and Woolf's translation of
The Truce was awarded a share of the
John Florio Prize in Italian translation in 1966. Woolf's nephew is the British-Canadian historian and academic administrator
Daniel Woolf. Stuart Woolf supervised many graduate students at all of the institutions at which he worked. He died of pneumonia in
Florence. Woolf died from COVID-19 in 2021. == Books (select) ==