At an Uncertain Hour Primo Levi's War Against Oblivion

Discusses the life and works of Primo Levi. States that Levi lived through Auschwitz in order to tell, and afterward would tell in order to live. "If This Is a Man" (1947), Levi's first book of memoirs of Auschwitz, is an act of witness. Although Levi makes judgments, he is calm and measured. "The Drowned and the Saved" (1986) - a later account of Auschwitz - has an angry tone, perhaps owing to Levi's political disillusionment, his lifelong trauma of the camps, and later depression. Contrasts Levi with Paul Celan and others. Notes that Levi trusted languages (especially Italian), whereas Celan (who wrote in German) reasserted truth against language.