This book considers Primo Levi's development as a writer expressed through multiple literary genres and increasing awareness of his readers over the course of his forty-year writing career. The book focuses on memory and trauma, and how narrative acts as a means of telling a story and engaging others in the transmission of that story, thus developing a literary lineage over time that can transcend geographic and cultural limitations. As the witness of catastrophic historical events, Levi's writing offers a space to consider what it means to be a reader of traumatic literature. The process of how books affect and change us is explored through a close reading of Levi's works alongside related writers and the historical contexts in which they lived.
1. Introduction: Souls Are Moved.- Part One: On Being Taught.-
2.
Literary Lineage: What Does It Mean to Leave a Legacy?.-
3. Books as
Teachers: Levis The Search for Roots.-
4. Learning from Others: Plurality in
Levis Storytelling.- Part Two: Writing and War.-
5. Auschwitz as University:
Levis Poetry and Fiction Post-Deportation.-
6. Befriending a Stranger: How
to Live with Other Humans.-
7. To Express Reality Again: Levi and Ginzburg
Writing After War.- Part Three: Ethical Reading.-
8. An Archaeology of
Witness: The Roots and Practice of Witnessing.-
9. Judges: Responding to an
Impossible Request.-
10. Translation and Understanding: Drawing Closer to
Original Texts.-
11. Conclusion: Reading in the Present.
Cheryl Chaffin is a Professor of English Composition, Literature, and Creative Writing at Cabrillo College, USA. She previously published After Poland: A Memoir Because of Primo Levi.
