The Complete Works of Primo Levi CONTENTS VOLUME I Introduction Toni Morrison Editor’s Introduction Ann Goldstein Editor’s Acknowledgments Chronology Ernesto Ferrero 1. IF THIS IS A MAN Translated by Stuart Woolf Appendix Translator’s Afterword 2. THE TRUCE Translated by Ann Goldstein 3. NATURAL HISTORIES Translated by Jenny McPhee 4. FLAW OF FORM Translated by Jenny McPhee VOLUME II 5. THE PERIODIC TABLE Translated by Ann Goldstein 6. THE WRENCH Translated by Nathaniel Rich Translator’s Afterword 7. UNCOLLECTED STORIES AND ESSAYS: 1949–1980 Translated by Alessandra Bastagli and Francesco Bastagli 8. LILITH AND OTHER STORIES Translated by Ann Goldstein 9. IF NOT NOW, WHEN? Translated by Antony Shugaar Author’s Note Translator’s Afterword VOLUME III 10. COLLECTED POEMS Translated by Jonathan Galassi 11. OTHER PEOPLE’S TRADES Translated by Antony Shugaar Translator’s Afterword 12. STORIES AND ESSAYS Translated by Anne Milano Appel Translator’s Afterword 13. THE DROWNED AND THE SAVED Translated by Michael F. Moore Works Cited Translator’s Afterword 14. UNCOLLECTED STORIES AND ESSAYS: 1981–1987 Translated by Alessandra Bastagli and Francesco Bastagli Primo Levi in America Robert Weil The Publication of Primo Levi’s Works in the World Monica Quirico Notes on the Texts Domenico Scarpa Select Bibliography Domenico Scarpa Copyrights and Permissions INTRODUCTION T he Complete Works of Primo Levi is far more than a welcome opportunity to reevaluate and reexamine historical and contemporary plagues of systematic necrology; it becomes a brilliant deconstruction of malign forces. The triumph of human identity and worth over the pathology of human destruction glows virtually everywhere in Levi’s writing. For a number of reasons his works are singular amid the wealth of Holocaust literature. First, for me, is his language—infused as it is with references to and intimate knowledge of ancient and modern sources of philosophy, poetry, and the figurative uses of scientific knowledge. Virgil, Homer, Eliot, Dante, Rilke play useful roles in his efforts to understand the life he lived in the concentration camp, as does his deep knowledge of science. Everything Levi knows he puts to use. Ungraspable as the necrotic impulse is, the necessity to “tell,” to describe the “monotonous horror of the mud,” is vital as he speaks for and of the throngs who died in vain. Language is the gold he mines to counter the hopelessness of meaningful communication between prisoners and guards. A pointed example of that hopelessness is the exchange, recounted in If This Is a Man, between himself and a guard when he breaks off an icicle to soothe his thirst. The guard snatches it from his hand. When Levi asks “Why?” the guard answers, “There is no why here.” While the oppressors rely on sarcasm laced with cruelty, the prisoners employ looks, glances, facial expressions for clarity and meaning. Although photographs of troughs of corpses stun viewers with the scale of ruthlessness, it is language that seals and reclaims the singularity of human existence. Yet the response to visual images collapses before language—its stretch and depth can be more revelatory than the personal experience itself. Everywhere in the language of this collection is the deliberate and sustained glorification of the human. Long after his eleven months in what he calls the Lager (Auschwitz III), as a survivor, Primo Levi understands evil as not only banal but unworthy of our insight—even of our intelligence, for it reveals nothing interesting or compelling about itself. It has merely size to solicit our attention and an alien stench to repel or impress us. For this articulate survivor, individual identity is supreme; efforts to drown identity inevitably become futile. He refuses to place cruel and witless slaughter on a pedestal of fascination or to locate in it any serious meaning. His primary focus is ethics.