If This Is a Man
by Primo Levi · Se questo è un uomo
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- 1947
- Language
- Italian
- Length
- Medium · 190 pp120 to 300 pages
- Difficulty
- Moderate2 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendSurvival in Auschwitz, translated by Stuart WoolfTouchstone, 1996The American edition under the title the Notre Dame list uses; the same translation appears as If This Is a Man in the UK.
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Levi, a young chemist from Turin arrested as a partisan in December 1943, was deported as a Jew to Auschwitz in February 1944 and held in the Monowitz labour camp until the Russians arrived in January 1945. His account, written within a year of his return, describes the journey, the tattooing and stripping of the prisoners, the hunger, the work, the economy of the camp, the selections for the gas chambers, and the ten days between the German evacuation and liberation. He writes as an observer of what the camp did to human beings, including a chapter on reciting Dante's Ulysses canto to a fellow prisoner.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns If This Is a Man are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.
