Primo Levi and the memory of Auschwitz: the duty of the testimony and the literary creation

Abstract

It is from the work of Levi, a canonical author of the testimony literature, that this article analyzes the role of memory in literary creation. Based on the relationship between memory, history and literature, and analyzing the author's testimonial writings, I intend to expose how the survivor's memory is present not only in the works that deal directly with the universe of the concentration camps, but also in his fiction and poems. For this purpose, I take Levi's poetry as a base, a part of his work whose read is still limited. Despite bringing a memorialistic connotation, Levi's poems are often placed below his testimonial narrative, and are considered a ‘minor’ part of his literature. However, I bring here the relationship that the ‘primolevian’ poetry establishes with memory and, consequently, with history. Thus, I intend to expose that the author's writings, born of his testimony and his memory, must occupy a prominent role, since they recall a dark past that insists on haunting humanity in the present.