If This Is a Man by Primo Levi (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide

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This engaging summary presents an analysis of If This Is a Man by Primo Levi, which details the author’s experiences in Buna-Monowitz, one of the subcamps of the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp. Levi was captured in 1944 while fighting with the Italian Resistance and deported to Buna-Monowitz, where he remained until the camp was liberated by the Red Army the following year. As well as a harrowing account of the horrors of the concentration camp system, If This Is a Man is also a meditation on what it means to be human and the difficulty of retaining a sense of identity within a structure devoid of moral values. Primo Levi was an Italian writer and Holocaust survivor whose best-known books include The Periodic Table, The Truce and The Drowned and the Saved. He committed suicide in 1987, at the age of 67.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: BrightSummaries.com
• Release date: Oct 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9782806270238

Book preview

ITALIAN WRITER AND HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR

Born in Turin in 1919.

Died in Turin in 1987.

Notable works:

The Truce (1963), novel

The Wrench (1978), novel

The Drowned and the Saved (1986), essays

Primo Levi was born in Turin to a middle-class Jewish family. After studying chemistry in his hometown, he moved to Milan for work and joined the anti-fascist resistance in 1943. As a result, he was arrested and deported to Auschwitz on 22 February 1944. He remained there for a year, until the camp’s liberation by the Red Army in January 1945. Upon his return to Italy, he found work as a chemist and married Lucia Morpurgo, with whom he had two children.

Immediately after his return from Auschwitz, he began work on his first book, If This Is a Man (1947). This was followed by several others, including The Truce (1963), which tells of his journey back to Italy, The Periodic Table (1975), which focuses on his experiences as a chemist, and The Drowned and the Saved (1986), his last and darkest book. Levi committed suicide in 1987.

AUSCHWITZ AND THE ANNIHILATION OF HUMANITY

Genre: autobiographical novel

Reference edition: Levi, P. (1991) If This Is a Man/The Truce. Trans. Woolf, S. London: Abacus.