PrefacePHOTO: Portrait with his Mother (1920)Portrait with his MotherIf This Is a ManBefore If This Is a ManAviglianaWriting the Auschwitz ReportA Diary and Early TypescriptsThe 1947 Edition of If This Is a ManIf This Is a Man (1947-1958)The JourneyOn the BottomInitiationKa-BeOur NightsThe WorkA Good DayThis Side of Good and EvilThe Drowned and the SavedChemistry ExaminationThe Canto of UlyssesThe Events of the SummerOctober 1944KrausDie Drei Leute vom LaborThe Last OneThe Story of Ten DaysA Sequel?The 1948 EditionOther VersionsLEMMASThe DeportedLagerMuselmännFirst NamesHolocaustTimeI/WeDepositionsHeinz RiedtGermansPHOTO:Portrait of a Student (c.1937)Portrait of a StudentESSAY: Is If This is a Man really “a detached study of certain aspects of the human mind” as the author claims?ESSAY: Why If This Is a Man was rejected by Einaudi and other publishers, or why so much time went by before it was understood and appreciated.ESSAY: Is If This is a Man a Comedy or a Tragedy?PHOTO: Photo of the False Identity Card (c. 1942)Photo of the False Identity Card (c. 1942)The TruceInceptionEditor of HimselfWriting by HandThe TitleThe TypescriptPublicationFurther EditionsLEMMASMud/ClayTrainsJourneysSpace TravelMapsSelf-CommentaryMusicTheaterESSAY: Dreams, Nightmares and Visions from If This is a Man, The Truce and the Shirt StoriesESSAY: Can Primo Levi be Considered a Political Writer?Natural HistoriesThe Short Story WorkshopScience Fiction?The BookVariantsLEMMASScience FictionHybridScientific AmericanRadioTelevisionCinemaFlaw of FormLEMMASGamesInventionCreation/EvolutionPHOTO: Portrait of a Chemist (1952)Portrait of a Chemist (1952)The Periodic TableA Book About ChemistryCalvino’s Letter and ArgonThe TypescriptThe BookESSAY: Vanadium and the gray doctor MüllerLEMMASScienceChemistryPaintSymmetry/AsymmetryMountain WalkingPHOTO: Portrait of the Family (1963)Portrait of the Family (1963)The WrenchBooks in PairsHistory of the BookThe TypescriptLEMMASWorkHandsCharles DarwinClaude Levi-StraussESSAY: What Literary Genre Does Primo Levi Belong To?The Search for RootsHistory of the BookThe PrefaceLevi’s EncyclopediaThe TypescriptLEMMASAlessandro ManzoniDante AlighieriGiacomo LeopardiCharles BaudelaireFrançois RabelaisArtThe BiblePainHappiness / UnhappinessEnvyHermann LangbeinMario Rigoni SternPHOTO: Portrait while Smoking and Discussion (1978)Portrait While Smoking and DiscussingLilith and Other StoriesThe CollectionThe TypescriptPHOTO: Portrait with an Owl Mask (1986)Portrait with an Owl Mask (1986)LEMMASLevi’s Alphabet of AnimalsAlfilAnchoviesAnimalculesAntsAtoula/NacaniBeesBeetlesBirdsBuckButterfliesCatsCentaursCreationCrowsDeltaDesignersDogsDolphinDromedaryElephantsEthologyFliesGiraffesGoosanderHensHorsesInventing an AnimalInspirationKangaroosLemmingsLichenManMetamorphosisMolesMonkeysMonstersMiceNeotenyOystersParasitesSeagullsSerpents and WormsSpidersTadpolesTracesVilmyESSAY: Levi, the EcologistPHOTO: Portrait with a Personal Computer (1986)Portrait with a Personal Computer (1986)If Not Now, When?A Drawer-Full of Unused IdeasA “First Time”The TypescriptA Return to Jewish Roots?LEMMASIsraelAnti-SemitismKafkaAt an Uncertain Hour (Collected Poems)History of the CollectionShort, Bloody PoemsColeridge, The Ancient Mariner, and the TitleThe Garzanti EditionVariationsTranslationsPoetry and ComputersOther People’s TradesElseviersThe HistoryThe TypescriptThe BookLEMMASEncyclopediasComputersFood PreservationItalo CalvinoAldous HuxleyPaul CelanTurinClarity/ObscurityCollected Stories and EssaysHistory of the BookThe BookLEMMASEditor and TranslatorArtistPHOTO: Portrait of a Retired Chemist (c.1986)Portrait of a Retired ChemistThe Drowned and the SavedHow the Book was ConceivedThe Night of the GirondistsAppendix to If This Is a ManChaim Rumkowski and the “Gray Area”The TitleThe BookLEMMASGray ZoneThe Night of the GirondistsJean AméryHannah ArendtBruno BettelheimSigmund FreudVariam ShalamovESSAY: Levi, Bellow and the King of the JewsLEMMASColorMemoryHumorCalvino, Levi, and Black HolesSuicidePHOTO: Levi’s Hall and Stairwell (c.1987)Levi’s Hall and Stairwell

Several chapters of if this is a man, if not all, were written in a small town in the piedmont region called Avigliana where Levi found a job in 1946. Two months after his grueling but ultimately fortunate journey home, Levi was employed by the Montecatini, the company that owned the chemical plant there. Years later, Levi wrote about the period when he was writing his first book in a short story called chromium (in the periodic table). Levi’s duties in the noisy paint factory were not particularly pressing (“no one paid much attention to me”, p.877), and he found time here and there to dedicate to his writing. It is likely that some chapters were written by hand, while others were typed, especially in the evening in the factory dormitory where he stayed during the week. The “maniacal scribbler who disturbed nights in the dormitory” (p.881). Since he had just comeback from Russia, some suspected him of being a soviet agent. He was in no hurry to finish but told his story “Giddily” (p.876), almost compulsively. He had no precise plan. The chapters of If This Is a Man he produced “little   by   little” (ibid.) In Avigliano were still very much fresh reports of facts, impressions, reflections, and eyewitness accounts, which would only take on a cohesive form when the final project was completed.   Levi also “scribbled”, as he put it, on his commutes from Turin to Avigliano and back. As he himself would later relate, one important chapter, The Canto of Ulysses, was written in a lunch break. He finished his meal in fifteen minutes and then retired to his dormitory to write the story of Pikolo and how he attempted to use Dante’s Canto   XXVI   to   teach   his French   fellow   prisoner   Italian.  These impressions linked to facts, as he liked to say, werexactly what Levi was extracting by writing a testimony in the guise of a story.   Before examining the work-in-progress that was the 1947 edition of If This Is a Man—the one published by de silva after Einaudi had rejected the manuscript—let us take a few steps back in time and look at the text known as the Auschwitz report. This is because there is an important link between this more ‘technical’ witness statement and the first edition of if this is a man.   In   the   Katowice   concentration   camp   where   Levi   was   held   after Auschwitz   was   liberated   by   the   red   Army   in   January   1945, Leonardo de Benedetti and Primo Levi were commissioned by the soviet officials who managed the camp to write a report on the sanitary and medical conditions at Monowitz where they had been imprisoned. The soviet government requested a similar report from all the doctors who had been held at Monowitz. De Benedetti, who was a doctor, had worked in the infirmary there, and Levi had been his assistant.   We do not know what language the report handed over to the soviet officials was written in. It may have been in French, a language both sides were familiar with. What we do know is that the Initial report served as a palimpsest for a later report entitled rap  porto sull’organizzazione igienico-sanitaria del campo di concentramento per ebrei di monowitz (auschwitz-alta slesia) (report on the sanitary and medical conditions of the concentration camp for Jews in Monowitz, Auschwitz, high Silesia, better known as the Auschwitz report) written by the same two former prisoners who had worked at the buna synthetic rubber factory at Monowitz. De Benedetti and Levi sent the report to the medical journal “Minerva Medica” in 1946, after they had been introduced by Silvia Pons, a doctor and former partisan. The article was reviewed by the board and published in the November 26 edition under the section ‘Original work’. The article was signed by the two authors, although De Benedetti’s name was spelt wrong. De Benedetti was credited as being a “surgeon” while Levi was referred to as a “chemist”.