Hebrew

 

Primo Levi’s name was unknown when he visited Israel in the spring of 1968. It was only in 1979 that one of his books, The Truce / Hahafuga was translated into Hebrew by Avraham Paska and published by Sifriat Poalim, albeit with a very limited press run of 500 copies. Levi wrote a preface especially for the Hebrew edition, where he wrote that he was "happy and proud" that his book was being "published in Israel, although years after it was written in Italy." He gave a partial explanation of the reason why If This is a Man had not yet been translated: "It does not surprise me that my previous book, the first one, had not been translated into Hebrew. If This is a Man is the diary of a concentration camp, a topic that is known too much here to be interesting." In fact, it took 9 more years for Hazeloo Adam, the Hebrew translation of If This is a Man, to be published in 1988 – a good 40 years after the Italian first edition. Since then, If This is a Man has been reprinted more than 20 times and has sold more than 30,000 copies. After that, Hebrew translations were published of If Not Now, When? (1987), The Periodic Table (1987), a collection of stories taken from Lilít and Vizio di forma (1988), The Monkey’s Wrench and The Drowned and the Saved (1991). All have been reprinted many times. If Not Now, When? was republished with a new translation in 2002. The Truce was also republished that year, for the first time since 1979.

At present, Primo Levi’s writings in Israel have two publishers. The first, Sifriat Poalim, published only The Truce. The second, Am Oved (Tel Aviv) published the trilogy of Auschwitz – If This is a Man / Hazehoo Adam (1988), The Drowned and the Saved / Hashok'im v'hanitsolim (1991) and the new edition of The Truce (2002). Hakibbutz Hameuhad, an affiliate of Sifriat Poalim, published The Periodic Table / Hatavla Hamahzorit, The Monkey’s Wrench / Mavteah Kohav, If Not Now, When? / Im lo ahshav, eymatay? and Zman shaul, an anthology of stories, all in 1988.