«Se questa è una Commedia»: Resa ed efficacia dei riferimenti danteschi nella testimonianza di Primo Levi in traduzione inglese

This paper aims to address the way Dante’s Inferno has been considered a symbolic cultural reference for the Holocaust survivor’s account, as it is a strong metaphor for any literary representation of tragic and inhuman reality. A most authentic example of such usage is found in Primo Levi’s first-hand account of survival in If This Is a Man. As of today, Levi’s book is considered one of the most powerful testimonies of incarcerated life in a Nazi concentration camp– it has been translated into more than 40 languages. Still, can Levi’s narration of his inexplicable experience translate out of his native language, of which such an innate literary understanding of Dante is ingrained, and preserve the characteristic of Levi’s authorship which recounts that which was unspeakable? This question is investigated by analyzing the English translation of Se questo è un uomo in its first (1959) and second (2015) editions.