Editing Primo Levi (section)

==== 1946–1960 ====
Levi was almost unrecognisable on his return to Turin. [[Kwashiorkor|Malnutrition edema]] had bloated his face. Sporting a scrawny beard and wearing an old [[Red Army]] uniform, he returned to Corso Re Umberto. The next few months gave him an opportunity to recover physically, re-establish contact with surviving friends and family, and start looking for work. Levi suffered from the psychological trauma of his experiences. Having been unable to find work in Turin, he started to look for work in Milan. On his train journeys, he began to tell people he met stories about his time at Auschwitz.

At a [[Rosh Hashanah|Jewish New Year]] party in 1946, he met Lucia Morpurgo, who offered to teach him to dance, and Levi fell in love with her. At about that time, he started writing poetry about his experiences in Auschwitz.

On 21 January 1946, he started work at DUCO, a [[Du Pont Co.|Du Pont Company]] paint factory outside Turin. Because of the extremely limited train service, Levi stayed in the factory dormitory during the week, which gave him the opportunity to write undisturbed, and he started the first draft of ''[[If This Is a Man]]''.<ref>Thomson p. 229</ref> Every day, as memories came to him, he scribbled notes on train tickets and scraps of paper. At the end of February, he had ten pages detailing the last ten days between the German evacuation and the arrival of the Red Army. For the next ten months, the book took shape in his dormitory as he typed up his recollections each night.

On 22 December 1946, the manuscript was complete. Lucia, who now reciprocated Levi's love, helped him to edit it, to make the narrative flow more naturally.<ref>Thomson p. 241.</ref> In January 1947, Levi was taking the finished manuscript around to publishers. It was rejected by [[Giulio Einaudi|Einaudi]] on the advice of [[Natalia Ginzburg]] and, in the United States, it was turned down by [[Little, Brown and Company]] on the advice of rabbi [[Joshua L. Liebman|Joshua Liebman]], an opinion which contributed to the neglect of his work in that country for four decades.<ref>Ian Thompson, ''Primo Levi,'' (2003) 2019 pp. 241–242</ref><ref>Ian Thomson, 'Talked into Life,' [[Times Literary Supplement]]  29 June 2012 pp. 13–15 [14–15]</ref> The social wounds of the war years were still too fresh, and he had no literary experience to give him a reputation as an author.

Eventually, Levi found a publisher, Franco Antonicelli, through a friend of his sister.<ref name="Thomson p246">Thomson p. 246.</ref> Antonicelli was an amateur publisher, but as an active anti-Fascist, he supported the substance of the book.

At the end of June 1947, Levi suddenly left DUCO and teamed up with an old friend Alberto Salmoni to run a chemical consultancy from the top floor of Salmoni's parents' house. Many of Levi's experiences of that time found their way into his later writing. He and Salmoni made most of their money from making and supplying [[stannous chloride]] for mirror makers,<ref>Thomson p. 249.</ref> delivering the unstable chemical by bicycle across the city. Attempts to make lipsticks from reptile excreta, and a coloured [[tooth enamel|enamel]] to coat teeth, were turned into short stories. Accidents in their laboratory filled the Salmoni house with unpleasant smells and corrosive gases.

In September 1947, Levi married Lucia and, a month later, on 11 October, ''If This Is a Man'' was published, with a print run of 2,000 copies. In April 1948, with Lucia pregnant with their first child, Levi decided that the life of an independent chemist was too precarious. He agreed to work for Accatti in the family paint business, which traded under the name SIVA. In October 1948, his daughter Lisa was born.

During that period, his friend [[Lorenzo Perrone]]'s physical and psychological health declined. Lorenzo had been a civilian forced worker in Auschwitz, who for six months had given part of his ration and a piece of bread to Levi without asking for anything in return,<ref>''If This Is Man'' Chapter – 'The Events of Summer'</ref> and the gesture saved Levi's life. In his memoir, Levi contrasted Lorenzo with everyone else in the camp, prisoners and guards alike, as someone who managed to preserve his humanity. After the war, Lorenzo could not cope with the memories of what he had seen and descended into alcoholism. Levi made several trips to rescue his old friend from the streets but, in 1952, Lorenzo died.<ref name="Thomson p246"/> In gratitude for his kindness in Auschwitz, Levi named both of his children, Lisa Lorenza and Renzo, after him.

[[File:Primo Levi.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Levi, 1950s]]

In 1950, having demonstrated his chemical talents to Accatti, Levi was promoted to Technical Director at SIVA.<ref>Angier p. 487</ref> As SIVA's principal chemist and troubleshooter, Levi travelled abroad. He made several trips to Germany and carefully engineered his contacts with senior German businessmen and scientists. Wearing short-sleeved shirts, he made sure they saw the concentration camp number [[tattoo]]ed on his arm.

He became involved in organisations pledged to remembering and recording the horror of the camps. In 1954, he visited [[Buchenwald]] to mark the ninth anniversary of the camp's liberation from the Nazis. Levi dutifully attended many such anniversary events over the years and recounted his own experiences. In July 1957, his son Renzo was born.

Despite a positive review by [[Italo Calvino]] in {{lang|it|[[L'Unità]]}}, only 1,500 copies of ''If This Is a Man'' were sold. In 1958, [[Arnoldo Mondadori Editore|Einaudi]], a major publisher, published it in a revised form and promoted it.

In 1958 [[Stuart Woolf]], in close collaboration with Levi, translated ''If This Is a Man'' into English, and it was published in the UK by Orion Press in 1959. Also in 1959, Heinz Riedt, under close supervision by Levi,<ref>Thomson p. 287.</ref> translated the book into German. Because one of Levi's primary reasons for writing the book was to get the German people to realise what had been done in their name, and to accept at least partial responsibility, that translation was perhaps the most significant to him.{{citation needed|date=December 2023}}