Thinking Out Loud: Primo Levi at 100: If This Is a Man

To commemorate the centennial of the author’s birth, writers, performers, and scholars gather for a multilingual, full-length reading of his seminal memoir. 

“Many people—many nations—can find themselves believing, more or less consciously, that “every stranger is an enemy.””—Primo Levi, preface to If This Is a Man

In 1947, just three years after he was liberated from Auschwitz, Primo Levi published If This Is a Man, an unsparing account of his 11 months of internment in the death camp. The book had at first faced difficulty finding a publisher, and upon its initial publication, sales were modest. Yet ten years later, when it was re-published, his first-hand account of survival was embraced by an international audience. 

From the afternoon into the evening, one hundred years after Levi was born in Turin, Italy, readers will gather at The New York Public Library for a full-length recitation of If This Is a Man (also known as Survival in Auschwitz), sharing chapters aloud in some of the many languages into which his indelible work has been translated around the world. 

List of readers: 
                                                 
SoHyun Bae Korean                                    Sam Norich English
Debora Balardini Portuguese               Stanislao Pugliese English               
Clémence Boulouque French                Azra Raza English
Fatma Bucak Turkish                                  Jack Sal English
Paloma Celis Carbajal Spanish              Salvatore Scibona English 
Roger Cohen English                                   Parul Sehgal English  
Molly Crabapple English                           Mark Shapiro English
Mohamed Ali Diriye Arabic                     Heli Sirviö Finnish        
Michael Frank English                                Loukas Skipitaris Greek    
Jonathan Galassi English                          Yuriy Tarnawsky Ukrainian 
Frank Hentschker German                      Magda Teter Polish 
Vít Hořejš Czech                                            Jordi Torrent Catalan 
Sherrilyn Ifill English                                    John Turturro English 
Revital Iyov Hebrew                                    Kirmen Uribe Basque            
Momoyo Kitaura Japanese                      Amir Vahab Farsi       
Nicole Krauss English                                 Liselot Van Heijden Dutch 
Berel Lang English                                         Lara Vapnyar Russian 
Stella Levi Italian                                            Aleksandra Wagner Serbian
Elena Lozonschi Romanian                      Jeanne Marie Wasilik English               
Chelsey Masterson English                     Bob Weil English        
Elidor Mëhilli Albanian                               
Erin Mizrahi English                                     
Avram Mlotek English                                 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Presented with Centro Primo Levi New York and the Italian Cultural Institute of New York.

The annual Joy Gottesman Ungerleider Lecture has been made possible by a generous grant from the Dorot Foundation.

REGISTER HERE
We anticipate the reading to last approximately eight hours. Please feel free to register for one, two, or all three sections of the event.

FIRST COME, FIRST SEATED
For free events, we generally overbook to ensure a full house. Priority will be given to those who have registered in advance, but registration does not guarantee admission. Non-registered guests will be admitted to the venue throughout the day, space permitting.

PRESS 
Please send all press inquiries (photo, video, interviews, audio-recording, etc.) at least 24-hours before the day of the program to Sara Beth Joren at sarabethjoren@nypl.org. For all other inquiries, please contact publicprograms@nypl.org.