Fourth Lecture
The fourth Primo Levi lecture was given by Mario Barenghi, Professor of Italian Litterature at the University of Milan-Bicocca, on November 8, 2012, at the Primo Levi Lecture Hall of the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Turin to a large audience including some classes of the secondary school Istituto Superiore Edoardo Amaldi in Orbassano (Turin).
His lecture, entitled Perché crediamo a Primo Levi? / Why do we believe Primo Levi, has been published by Einaudi in May 2013.
It seems to me unnecessary to add that none of the facts are invented.” This is the way that Primo Levi concluded his preface to If This is a Man. It really was unnecessary to make this distinction in that readers all over the world believe the “bad news” of Auschwitz. However, how does the pact that every reader makes with Levi’s narrative voice originate and how does it work? What captivates us in that story and why does it do so? In what way does the authoritativeness of Levi as witness and writer take shape?
Mario Barenghi examines the mechanisms of this organization of memory and text that turns personal trauma into shared memory.
On the occasion of the Turin International Book Fair, May 17, 2013 was presented Why we believe in Primo Levi?, the volume by Mario Barenghi taken from the fourth Primo Levi Lecture and published by Einaudi in a bilingual Italian / English edition.