Kafkaesque: Fourteen Stories

By Franz Kafka
Translated by Peter Kuper

Award-winning graphic novelist Peter Kuper presents a mesmerizing interpretation of fourteen iconic Kafka short stories.

“For tips on graphic novel adaptations, publishers would be well-served to look at Peter Kuper's Kafkaesque. The renderings of fourteen Franz Kafka short fictions remain true, but not slavishly devoted, to the originals and the final product gives us new perspectives on classic stories. It certainly helps that Kafka's work is opaque and ripe for reinterpretation, but it is Kuper's art that makes it so fresh.”—Times Literary Supplement

“...fans of enigmatic pessimism can allow themselves a shudder of delight.”—Strong Words

“Brilliant....The Kafkaesque humor is intact, even enhanced.”—The Wall Street Journal

Long fascinated with the work of Franz Kafka, Peter Kuper began illustrating his stories in 1988. Initially drawn to the master’s dark humor, Kuper adapted the stories over the years to plumb their deeper truths. Kuper’s style deliberately evokes Lynd Ward and Frans Masereel, contemporaries of Kafka whose wordless novels captured much of the same claustrophobia and mania as Kafka’s tales. Working from new translations of the classic texts, Kuper has reimagined these iconic stories for the twenty-first century, using setting and perspective to comment on contemporary issues like civil rights and homelessness.

Longtime lovers of Kafka will appreciate Kuper’s innovative interpretations, while Kafka novices will discover a haunting introduction to some of the great writer’s most beguiling stories, including "A Hunger Artist," "In The Penal Colony," and "The Burrow." Kafkaesque stands somewhere between adaptation and wholly original creation, going beyond a simple illustration of Kafka’s words to become a stunning work of art.

Hardcover
160 pages
W. W. Norton & Company, 2018
6.6 x 0.6 x 9.5 inches
ISBN 9780393635621
Graphic Novel, Short Stories