Language:
English
Year of publication:
2009
Titel der Quelle:
Shofar; an Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
28,1 (2009) 104-126
Keywords:
Levi, Primo,
;
Wiesel, Élie,
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Influence
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Personal narratives, Italian
Abstract:
Primo Levi's first books, "Se questo è un uomo" ("Survival in Auschwitz" in the second American edition) and "La tregua" (in English, "The Reawakening"), found their way to the American reader respectively in 1959 and 1965. But it was only in the mid-1980s that Levi emerged from obscurity to acclaim in the United States as one of the most important witnesses of the Nazi genocide and as a significant 20th-century writer. Other major works by Levi were translated in this period. Examines Levi's reception by the press and the academic world. As a witness of the Holocaust, Levi seems, in American culture, to be contrasted to Elie Wiesel: the former with his sober, intellectual, secular, and universalist view of the Nazi genocide, and the latter with an emotional, religious, and strongly Jewish-Yiddish view. Levi is now accepted not only as a Holocaust memoirist, but also as an important theorist of the Holocaust. His conceptions and notions, like the "grey zone", are employed by leading historians. His works are part of university curricula, not only for students of the Holocaust and Italian literature but also of psychology, sociology, and other fields of study.
URL:
Click here for fulltext (may be restricted to subscribers)
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
Permalink
