A Centaur in Auschwitz: Reflections on Primo Levi’s Thinking

In A Centaur in Auschwitz, Massimo Giuliani sheds new light on Primo Levi’s rational, demythologizing approach to suffering and survival. Whether working in narrative or poetic form, Levi grappled with the ambiguities and complexities of innocence and guilt, triumph and loss. Giuliani presents a powerful new means to understand Levi’s thought: employing the neologism of salvaction (conveying ‘salvation’ through one’s own ‘action’), Giuliani has developed a ‘star of salvaction’―a diagram in the shape of a star of David, in which each of the six points leads to a strategy Levi learned for seeking meaning, and thereby salvation, in the misery of Auschwitz. This unique book, with its concise overview of Levi’s expression and development as a writer, reveals Primo Levi for what he was: scientist, intellectual, Jew, and dedicated seeker of the roots of human dignity.