François Rastier et Gaëtan Pegny
Witnessing and Translating: Ulysses at Auschwitz. Gaëtan Pégny interviews François Rastier
Abstract : In Ulysses at Auschwitz (2005 Auschwitz Foundation award), François Rastier reinterprets Primo Levi’s entire corpus in light of the latter’s work as a translator and a poet, an aspect of Levi’s work that is too often neglected. Critics have taken all too seriously Levi’s assertion that his poetry was the irrational part of his work. François Rastier counters that critical omission by showing just how important poetry was for Levi, who produced the most poetry when he was laying the foundations for If This Is a Man (published in 1947) and as well immediately prior to his last work, The Drowned and the Saved (1986). By reminding us of the poetic tradition they grew out of as well as opposed, Levi’s poems offer a poetics that can capture the experience of survivors and their crisis, and testify for the witnesses, whose voices are echoed by those voices that poetry makes audible.This interview arose out of the desire to pursue the avenues opened by François Rastier’s double reflection on Primo Levi’s poetry and translation.
Pour citer ce document
FRANÇOIS RASTIER et GAËTAN PEGNY (2018) «Witnessing and Translating: Ulysses at Auschwitz. Gaëtan Pégny interviews François Rastier», [En ligne], Volume XXIV - n° 3 (2018),
URL : http://www.revue-texto.net/index.php/Archives/docannexe/Parutions/Parutions/Marges/index.php?id=4114.