In the beginning: Primo Levi and the witnesses of his generation From one generation to another: the writing of great witnesses
Thursday 09 March 2017 at 7:30 pm
Primo Levi © Shoah Memorial
Some witnesses wrote immediately after the war, creating a de facto literary genre. Others, later, have shed light on renewed aspects of the genocidal process and its aftermath. Over time, the public has discovered the works of Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi, Imre Kertész, Aharon Appelfeld, Charlotte Delbo and other great founding texts.
How did these works influence our contemporaries and why did they become classics?
This meeting is part of a cycle of four meetings on the theme "From one generation to another: the writing of great witnesses"
During this evening that inaugurates the cycle, Philippe Mesnard will discuss the variants of the rewriting of Primo Levi’s text that we know under the title If it’s a man, translated and published in French in 1987. This text is not exactly the same as the 1958 Italian edition, it is based on a previous version dated 1947, resulting from several sources and different rewritings.
Anny Dayan Rosenman will evoke the way in which some of the great texts by witnesses constitute a new part of so-called classical literature insofar as they have managed, through the choice of a style, to make one voice "unmistakable" heard alongside any other. A voice able to state what happened to their companions but also how they themselves were confronted with evil and extreme suffering.
In the second part of the evening, the writer Agnès Desarthe and the director Emil Weiss will discuss the impact of Primo Levi’s work on their own creations. Giovanni Tesio, who conducted a final hitherto unpublished interview with Primo Levi in the first months of 1987 will also participate in this meeting.
In the presence of Philippe Mesnard, professor of comparative literature, Blaise Pascal University, Clermont-Ferrand, Anny Dayan Rosenman, senior lecturer in literature, Paris 7 University – Denis Diderot, Emil Weiss, director, Agnès Desarthe, writer, and Giovanni Tesio, author of the book I, who am speaking to you, conversation with Giovanni Tesio (Pocket Tallandier co-edition, March 2017).
Hosted by Norbert Czarny, writer and critic.
Cycle of 4 meetings. Rates: €5/€3 per meeting,
3 sessions purchased = €3 per session (when you book 3 meetings of this minimum cycle, you can choose them as "reduced rate (€3)" directly on our ticket office)
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