The Cambridge Companion to Primo Levi

by Edited by Robert S. C. Gordon

• ISBN13: 9780521604611
• ISBN10: 0521604613
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-08-13
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Primo Levi (19191987) was the author of a rich body of work, including memoirs and reflections on Auschwitz, poetry, science fiction, historical fiction and essays. In particular, his lucid and direct accounts of his time at Auschwitz, begun immediately after liberation in 1945 and sustained until weeks before his suicide in 1987, has made him one of the most admired of all Holocaust writer-survivors and one of the best guides we have for the interrogation of that horrific event. But there is also more to Levi than the voice of the witness. He has increasingly come to be recognised as one of the major literary voices of the twentieth century. This Companion brings together leading specialists on Levi and scholars in the fields of Holocaust studies, Italian literature and language, and literature and science, to offer a stimulating introduction to all aspects of the work of this extraordinary writer.

Table of Contents

Notes on contributors	p. vii
Acknowledgements	p. ix
References and quotations	p. x
Chronology	p. xii
Introduction	p. xvii
Cultures	p. 1
Prime Levi's Turin	p. 3
Prime Levi's Jewish identity	p. 17
The Holocaust	p. 33
from If This is a Man to The Drowned and the Saved	p. 35
Primo Levi's Holocaust vocabularies	p. 51
Appropriating Primo Levi	p. 67
Science	p. 87
Primo Levi and 'man as maker'	p. 89
Primo Levi's science-fiction	p. 105
Language and Literature	p. 119
Primo Levi's languages	p. 121
Primo Levi's humour	p. 137
Primo Levi and translation	p. 155
Primo Levi, the canon and Italian literature	p. 171
Guide to further reading	p. 189
Index of references to works	p. 200
General index	p. 203
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.