Depending on interest, this could become an ongoing event, but for this session we'll be discussing:

If This Is a Man also published under the title Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi. This memoir came out immediately after World War II and covers Levi's arrest while participating in the Italian anti-fascist Resistance and his subsequent deportation to Auschwitz, where he was incarcerated for 10 months, until the camp was liberated on January 27, 1945. Written in a calm, observational tone.

We are lucky enough to have our conversation led by:

Gabrielle Orsi earned her PhD in Italian at Columbia University in 2008, focusing on modern Italian literature and Holocaust Studies. She has taught at University of Denver, University of Kentucky, Lexington, City University of New York, Queens College Department of European Languages & Literatures, Barnard College, Columbia University, Colorado Mountain College, and Bellevue College in WA, and held fellowships at the American Academy in Rome, Northwestern University, the Getty Institute of Los Angeles, and the Institute of Modern Languages Research at University of London. She has published a number of academic articles and book chapters on Italian literature and Italian Jewish history as well as contributing original research on Italian female authors to the University of Chicago's Italian Women Writers Database. She currently works for the University of Washington's School of Medicine and resides in Oregon.

The location will be confirmed one week before the event, and we would love to hold it in someone's home that's relatively central in the Portland metro area so please email [email protected]     if you might be willing to have the Columbia book group meet in your house.