{"id":10497,"date":"2025-03-05T10:21:11","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T09:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moked.it\/international\/?p=10497"},"modified":"2025-04-23T09:35:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T07:35:08","slug":"usa-furio-colombo-the-man-who-brought-primo-levi-to-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moked.it\/international\/2025\/03\/05\/usa-furio-colombo-the-man-who-brought-primo-levi-to-america\/","title":{"rendered":"USA – Furio Colombo, the man who brought Primo Levi to America"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The United States under Trump\u2019s second administration will be full of surprises, predicted Italian journalist and academic Furio Colombo (photo). A longtime critic of the tycoon-turned-president, Colombo believed this term had the potential to be \u201cworse and more dangerous\u201d. Unfortunately, Colombo will never be able to verify if his predictions come true. The renowned journalist died in Rome on January 14, two weeks after his 94th birthday.
Historical correspondent from the United Stated for the Italian newspaper La Stampa<\/em>, where he had worked alongside entrepreneur Adriano Olivetti, Colombo was an important voice in helping Italians understand America. As historian David Bussa explained: \u201cHe had a deep knowledge of American culture and didn\u2019t see the USA only as a symbol of power or economic strength, but also as a place of poetry, songs of protest, sensitivity to the less fortunate and resilience,\u201d he continued \u201cFor Colombo, American culture was a rich and complex model, a rare perspective in Italy, where prejudicial narratives often dominate.\u201d
In the United States, Colombo interviewed Martin Luther King Jr. and Eleanor Roosevelt. He befriended Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Joan Baez. He also discussed Primo Levi with writer Philip Roth. In his book Il tempo di Adriano Olivetti<\/em> (The time of Adriano Olivetti) published by Edizioni di Comunit\u00e0, Colombo recalls that it was thanks to Roth that Primo Levi\u2019s book Se questo \u00e8 un uomo <\/em>(If this is a man) reached Americans\u2019 bookshelves. \u201cUntil Roth wrote about him, Levi was considered in America only as a Jewish man who had survived the Holocaust, whose book had been translated by small and particularly prominent Jewish publishers,\u201d wrote Colombo, born in 1931, recalling his meeting with Roth.
\u201cEverything started with a long conversation in a coffee shop in Central Park West. I had called Roth on the phone, introduced myself, explained what I wanted to discuss with him, and he said that he was very interested.\u201d In those years, the author of American Pastoral<\/em> had developed a deep admiration for Levi. In 1986, they met in Turin and Roth wrote about it on the New York Review of Books<\/em>, supporting Levi\u2019s works diffusion in America. As Roth was introducing Primo Levi to the United States, Colombo was doing his part.
In a 2017 interview with the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera<\/em>, Colombo recounted how the rediscovery of Levi led him to revisit his books. Once he was back in Italy and elected to the Chamber of Deputies, Primo Levi\u2019s words inspired him to propose a Day of Remembrance, dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust. Reading of October 16, 1943<\/em> by Giacomo Debenedetti, which recounts the roundup of more than a thousand Roman Jews for the gas chambers of Auschwitz, strengthened his idea.
\u201cColombo wanted to dismantle the myth of the \u2018good Italian\u2019 and confront our country\u2019s responsibilities in the genocide of the Jewish people. For him, remembrance was not just about comforting the victims, but also about critically examining our mindset, culture and historical legacies\u201d, Bidussa concluded. \u201cHis critical spirit was the driving force behind his dedication.\u201d An approach that he applied to everything, the historian concludes\u2014valid for both the America of yesterday and today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United States under Trump\u2019s second administration will be full of surprises, predicted Italian journalist and academic Furio Colombo (photo). A longtime critic of the tycoon-turned-president, Colombo believed this term had the potential to be \u201cworse and more dangerous\u201d. Unfortunately, Colombo will never be able to verify if his predictions come true. The renowned journalist… leggi <\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1871,"featured_media":10502,"menu_order":395,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9316],"tags":[],"position":[],"class_list":["post-10497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture"],"yoast_head":"\nUSA - Furio Colombo, the man who brought Primo Levi to America - Pagine Ebraiche International<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/moked.it\/international\/2025\/03\/05\/usa-furio-colombo-the-man-who-brought-primo-levi-to-america\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"USA - Furio Colombo, the man who brought Primo Levi to America - Pagine Ebraiche International\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The United States under Trump\u2019s second administration will be full of surprises, predicted Italian journalist and academic Furio Colombo (photo). 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