From Europe to America: the itineraries of the first works of Primo Levi published in Brazil

Abstract

Primo Levi (1919-1987) is one of the greatest authors of the universal literary panorama of the second half of the 20th century. He is considered the main name of the Shoah literature and an emblematic figure in the memory of the Nazi-Fascist concentration and extermination camps. His work is a narrative and reflective monument about the condition of the prisoner in the Lager, but, moreover, about the human condition itself. A timeless writer who becomes increasingly necessary in a context in which the fascism representations still persist in surviving. Considering the wide scope that Levi's writings have in the various fields of knowledge, as well as the itinerary that his work has followed to the present moment, our article intends to establish an overview of the reception and the critical fortune of the first two works that Primo Levi published in Brazil: É isto um homem? and Os afogados e os sobreviventes. To deal with Primo Levi's reception and writings, and the critical fortune generated by them, is to be able of determining how the author was translated and welcomed in the most diverse cultural environments. By studying the whole process, it is possible to understand the universal value of his literature.