If This Is a Man by Primo Levi (Book Analysis)

This practical and insightful reading guide offers a complete summary and analysis of If This Is a Man by Primo Levi. It provides a thorough exploration of the book’s content, context and main themes, including in particular the barbarity and inhumanity of the Nazi concentration camps. The clear and concise style makes for easy understanding, providing the perfect opportunity to improve your literary knowledge in no time.

This clear and detailed 56-page reading guide is structured as follows:

• Biography of Primo Levi
• Presentation of If This Is a Man
• Summary of If This Is a Man
• Character study
  • Primo Levi
  • Helpers
  • Opponents
• Political and historical context
• Analysis of If This is a Man
  • The passage of time
  • A strange Tower of Babel
  • Auschwitz and the human soul
  • The Truce
  • The literature of the concentration camps

About If This Is a Man

If This Is a Man is Primo Levi’s account of the year he spent in the Auschwitz concentration camp, after being arrested for his participation in the anti-fascist resistance in Italy. It was first published in 1947, making it one of the first testimonies of life in the camps, but it did not become influential until it was reissued in 1958. The book is now considered an essential reference in the literature about the Nazi concentration camps.

About Primo Levi

Primo Levi was an Italian writer and Holocaust survivor. He was born to a middle-class Jewish family in Turin in 1919, and moved to Milan after completing his studies. Once there, he joined the anti-fascist resistance in 1943, and as a result was arrested and deported to Auschwitz in 1944. He spent a year there, until the camp was liberated by the Red Army in January 1945. After his return to Italy, he wrote his first book, If This Is a Man, which was followed by several others, including The Periodic Table and The Drowned and the Saved. Levi committed suicide in 1987.