Close Reading of a Title: Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz
For many years in the United States, Primo Levi’s first book was known by the title Survival in Auschwitz, rather than the Italian original “If this is a man.” This talk will interrogate the meaning behind this unfaithful, but also symptomatic mistranslation. How did this new title contribute to the extraordinary success of the work and in what way did the word “survival” condition its reception? What does it mean to survive not only in Auschwitz but also after Auschwitz? Most importantly, can the two titles shed light on each other, forcing us to ask: If this is a life?
Maria Anna Mariani is an assistant professor of Modern Italian Literature at the University of Chicago. After completing a Ph.D. in theory of literature at the University of Siena, she moved to South Korea, where she taught four years at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. Mariani is author of the monograph, Sull’ autobiografia contemporanea. Nathalie Sarraute, Elias Canetti, Alice Munro, Primo Levi: Carocci 2012 (On Contemporary Autobiography) and co-author of a three-volume anthology designed for high school LiberaMente: Palumbo 2010. She is now writing a book on survival.
Free and open to the public.
Sponsored by Jewish Studies and made possible thanks to a grant from the Oakton Educational Foundation. For more information, email jewishstudies@oakton.edu.
