Franz Kafka

By Ken Krimstein “Clever, charming, amusing, and just plain brilliant. Ken Krimstein is the most inventive graphic biographer on the planet-and certainly the only one who could explain both Einstein and Kafka. A page turner on gravity and relativity!” -KAI BIRD, Pulitzer Prize-winning co-author of American Prometheus, the biography that inspired the Oscar-winning film Oppenheimer“For the science-challenged, it comes as a relief and a delight to have gravity and relativity explained in Ken Krimstein's marvelously inventive graphic novel.” ―The New York Sun “[Krimstein] engagingly chronicles a significant time period for both [Einstein and Kafka] . . . A fun, amusing fantasy about an important year in two icons' lives.” ―Kirkus Reviews From the award-winning New Yorker cartoonist, a graphic narrative revealing the pivotal year in Prague when Einstein became “Einstein,” Franz Kafka became “Kafka,” and the world changed forever. During the year that Prague was home to both Albert Einstein and Franz Kafka from 1911-1912, the trajectory of the two men's lives wove together in uncanny ways-as did their shared desire to tackle the world's biggest questions in Europe's strangest city. In stunning words and pictures, Einstein in Kafkaland reveals the untold story of how their worlds wove together in a cosmic battle for new kinds of truth. For Einstein, his lost year in Prague set him on the path to what many consider the greatest scientific discovery of all time, his General Theory of Relativity. And for Kafka, this charmed year was a bridge to writing his first masterpiece, The Judgment. Based on diaries, lectures, letters, and papers from this period amid a planet electrifying itself into modernity, Einstein in Kafkaland brings to life the emergence of a new world where art and science come together in ways we still grapple with today. Hardcover224 pagesBloomsbury, 20246.85 x 9.05 inchesISBN 9781635579536Graphic Novels, Biography

Einstein in Kafkaland: How Albert Fell Down the Rabbit Hole and Came Up with the Universe

By Franz KafkaTranslated by Edwin Muir and Willa Muir Trapped in a bureaucratic quagmire, K., a land surveyor, struggles to gain access to the mysterious, impenetrable Castle, a symbol of unassailable authority. His attempts are met with inexplicable delays, administrative hurdles, and a pervasive sense of alienation. Franz Kafka infuses his narrative with existential dread, crafting a story that is both exasperating and amusing yet deeply human. It’s a tale of the individual’s struggle against the overwhelming forces of bureaucracy, power, and the quest for identity in a world that often seems indifferent. Well into the twenty-first century, Kafka’s tale resonates with anyone who has ever felt unheard or lost in a maze of red tape. Published posthumously in 1926, The Castle was first translated into English in 1930 by Edwin and Willa Muir. Although incomplete because of Kafka’s untimely death in 1924, the novel remains a seminal work. Despite Kafka’s instruction to his close friend Max Brod to destroy all unpublished manuscripts after his death, The Castle was preserved and published. The novel stands alongside Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” and The Trial as one of the twentieth century’s most significant and existentially profound absurdist literary contributions. Paperback224 pages Dover Publications, 20255 x 8 inchesISBN 9780486855394Literature

The Castle

By Christine Estima A sweeping, tragic romance and feminist adventure about translator and resistance fighter Milena Jesensk 's torrid love affair with Franz Kafka. In 1919, Milena Jesensk , a clever and spirited twenty-three-year-old, is trapped in an unhappy marriage to literary critic Ernst Pollak. Since Pollak is unable to support the pair in Vienna's post-war economy, Jesensk must supplement their income by working as a translator. Having previously met her compatriot Franz Kafka in the literary salons of Prague, she writes to him to ask for permission to translate his story "The Stoker" from German to Czech, becoming Kafka's first translator. The letter launches an intense and increasingly passionate correspondence. Jesensk is captivated by Kafka's energy, intensity, and burning ambition to write. Kafka is fascinated by Jesensk 's wit, rebellious spirit, and intelligence. Jesensk and Kafka meet twice for lovers' trysts, but can such an intense connection endure beyond a fleeting affair? In her remarkable debut novel, Christine Estima weaves little-known facts and fiction into a rich tapestry, powerfully portraying the struggles of a woman forced to choose between the roles of wife, lover, and intellectual. Paperback384 pagesHouse of Anansi Press, 20255.25 x 1 x 7.75 inchesISBN 9781487013318Biography, Literary History

Letters to Kafka

Edited with text by Nicholas Sawicki and Marie Rakušanová Preface by Zuzana Jürgens Text by Alexander Klee, Marek Nekula, and Miroslav Halak Journey through Kafka’s Prague and discover the art, architecture, media and performances that influenced the author’s oeuvre What did Franz Kafka see and do, whom did he meet and what did he read while roaming the streets of Prague? Through the Eyes of Franz Kafka brings the world of turn-of-the-century Czechoslovakia and its cultural milieu to life. The author’s home city was a heterogeneous and multilingual metropolis whose visual environment shaped his everyday experiences, from local painting and sculpture to architecture, monuments and popular visual media including advertisements, photography and cabaret. Kafka’s attention to the modern visual culture of his era was reflected in his writings and in his interest in drawing, a practice in which he received preliminary training and which he took up in his free time during his years as a university student. This illustrated publication immerses us in Kafka’s world; by following in his footsteps and looking through his eyes, we gain a new understanding of his thoughts, philosophies and inspirations. Hardcover224 pages | 231 color and 16 tri-tone IllustrationsKant, 20258.25 x 11.25 inchesISBN 9788074374265Exhibition Catalogue, Biography

Through the Eyes of Franz Kafka: Between Image and Language

By Lene Rock The first extensive comparison of the German-Jewish literary corpus and contemporary minority writing in German Since the turn of the 21st century, countless literary endeavors by ‘new Germans’ have entered the spotlight of academic research. Yet ‘minority writing’, with its distinctive renegotiation of traditional concepts of cultural identity, is far from a recent phenomenon in German literature. A hundred years previously, the intense involvement of German-Jewish intellectuals in cultural and political discourses on Jewish identity put a clear stamp on German modernism. This book is the first to unfold literary parallels between these two riveting periods in German cultural history. Drawing on the philosophical oeuvre of Jean-Luc Nancy, a comparative reading of texts by, amongst others, Beer-Hofmann, Kermani, Özdamar, Roth, Schnitzler, and Zaimoglu examines a variety of literary approaches to the thorny issue of cultural identity, while developing an overarching perspective on the ‘politics of literature’. Paperback370 pagesLeuven University Press, 20206.14 x 9.21 inchesISBN 9789462701786Literary Criticism

As German as Kafka: Identity and Singularity in German Literature around 1900 and 2000

Edited by Richard Bassett A gorgeously jacketed hardcover anthology of stories set in Prague, by an international array of brilliant writers. The Golden City of Prague has long been an intellectual center of the western world. The writers collected here range from the early nineteenth century to the present and include both Prague natives and visitors from elsewhere. Here are stories, legends, and scenes from the city’s past and present, from the Jewish fable of the golem, a creature conjured from clay, to tales of German and Soviet invasions. The international array of writers ranges from Franz Kafka to Ivan Klíma to Bruce Chatwin, and includes the award-winning British playwright Tom Stoppard and former American Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, both of whom have Czech roots. Covering the city’s venerable Jewish heritage, the glamour of the belle-époque period, World War II, Communist rule, the Prague Spring, the Velvet Revolution, and beyond, Prague Stories weaves a remarkable selection of fiction and nonfiction into a literary portrait of a fascinating city. Hardcover416 pagesEveryman's Library, 20204 .5 x 7.25 inchesISBN 9780525659570Classical Fiction

Prague Stories (Everyman's Pocket Library)

Written and Illustrated by Nicolas MahlerTranslated by Alexander Booth "If you are Nicolas Mahler, the writer and illustrator of a short but engaging graphic biography of the man, you’d see [Kafka] as a sort of blob of hair and eyebrows on a stick. The illustrations of Completely Kafka may look rudimentary, but they work. In fact they’re similar in style to the doodles Kafka himself would make in his notebooks."—Spectator "Much the best thing about the book are the charming black and white drawings. The best are the drawings of Kafka himself, drawn in thick brushstroke. Some are like cartoons, a few are more like Kafka’s own drawings, angular, isolated."—Jewish Chronicle A delightfully witty and original graphic biography of Kafka, published to coincide with the centenary of the author’s death The young Franz Kafka has too many fears to name. Mirrors, clothing, his own body, almost everything causes him to fret. How did this ‘anxious and small bundle of bones’ become one of the world’s great writers? With telling details and sharply minimal illustrations, Nicolas Mahler tells a wickedly funny story of the development of Kafka’s genius, offering a tribute that is as playful as it is profound. Paperback128 pages Pushkin Press, 20245.35 x 8.44 inchesISBN 9781805331582Biography, Historic Graphic Novel

Completely Kafka: A Comic Biography

By Franz KafkaTranslated by Idris Parry A brilliant translation of one of the greatest works of Franz Kafka, author of Metamorphosis, telling the haunting story of a man’s desperate search for answers amid his prosecution for an unknown crime. A terrifying psychological trip into the life of one Joseph K., an ordinary man who wakes up one day to find himself accused of a crime he did not commit, a crime whose nature is never revealed to him. Once arrested, he is released, but must report to court on a regular basis—an event that proves maddening, as nothing is ever resolved. As he grows more uncertain of his fate, his personal life—including work at a bank and his relations with his landlady and a young woman who lives next door—becomes increasingly unpredictable. As K. tries to gain control, he succeeds only in accelerating his own excruciating downward spiral. Paperback208 pagesPenguin Random House, 2024Originally published in 19255.1 x 7.75 inchesISBN 9780241678893Literature

The Trial (Penguin Classics)

By Franz KafkaIntroduction by Idris ParryTranslated by J. A. Underwood An acclaimed translation of the final work by Franz Kafka—author of Metamorphosis and some of the twentieth century’s greatest literature—following the story of a man’s bizarre, unending struggle to carry out his mysterious new job The Castle is the story of K., the unwanted land surveyor who is never to be admitted to the Castle nor accepted in the village, and yet cannot go home. As he encounters dualities of certainty and doubt, hope and fear, and reason and nonsense, K.’s struggles in the absurd, labyrinthine world where he finds himself seem to reveal an inexplicable truth about the nature of existence. Kafka began The Castle in 1922 and it was never finished, yet this, the last of his three great novels, draws fascinating conclusions that make it feel strangely complete. Paperback320 pagesPenguin Classics, 2024Originally published in 19265.1 x 7.25 inchesISBN 9780241678916Literature, Fiction

The Castle (Penguin Classics)

By Franz Kafka "He is the greatest German writer of our time. Such poets as Rilke or such novelists as Thomas Mann are dwarfs or plaster saints in comparison to him."—Vladimir Nabokov One morning, ordinary salesman Gregor Samsa wakes up to find himself transformed into a giant cockroach. Metamorphosis, Kafka's masterpiece of unease and black humour, is one of the twentieth century's most influential works of fiction, and is accompanied here by two more classic stories. Hardcover144 pagesPenguin Clothbound Classics, 20224.72 x 0.75 x 6.57 inchesISBN 9780241573730Classic Fiction

Metamorphosis

Original Price: $29.95 UP TO 20% ADDITIONAL SAVINGS FOR MEMBERS By Franz KafkaTranslated and Edited by Mark Harman"The translations are surely definitive – Harman’s grasp of the German language is as comprehensive as was the Czech-born Kafka’s – but the prime value of the book is in the annotation. Every nuance of language is flagged, every cross-reference is followed up, every subtle shade of humour is highlighted. This is academic work as it should be done, in faithful service to the text and to its readers."―John Banville, The Guardian “Richly illustrated and filled with fascinating references to contemporary sources, critical commentary and relevant passages from Kafka’s letters and diaries…Anyone interested in knowing more about these stories will find this volume a treasure trove.”―Karen Leeder, Times Literary Supplement “[This book] gives us crisp new translations of Franz Kafka’s best novellas and tales and also a substantial scholarly introduction to his life and work…Ironies…lurk in Kafka’s fiction: in dry, dispassionate sentences that deliver disconcerting changes of perspective and in slyly matter-of-fact descriptions of uncanny events. Harman’s translations recreate these subtle effects with admirable precision; and by uncovering the veins of humour and hope in Kafka’s dark art, he may well win new readers for this gentle master of the absurd.”―Joachim Redner, Australian Book Review A superb new translation of Kafka’s classic stories, authoritatively annotated and beautifully illustrated. Selected Stories presents new, exquisite renderings of short works by one of the indisputable masters of the form. Award-winning translator and scholar Mark Harman offers the most sensitive English rendering yet of Franz Kafka’s unique German prose—terse, witty, laden with ambiguities and double meanings. With his in-depth biographical introduction and notes illuminating the stories and placing them in context, Harman breathes new life into masterpieces that have often been misunderstood. Included are sixteen stories, arranged chronologically to convey a sense of Kafka’s artistic development. Some, like “The Judgment,” “In the Penal Colony,” “A Hunger Artist,” and “The Transformation” (usually, though misleadingly, translated as “The Metamorphosis”), represent the pinnacle of Kafka’s achievement. Accompanying annotations highlight the wordplay and cultural allusions of the original German, pregnant with irony and humor that English readers have often missed. Although Kafka has frequently been cast as a loner, in part because of his quintessential depictions of modern alienation, he had a number of close companions. Harman draws on Kafka’s diaries, extensive correspondence, and engagement with early twentieth-century debates about Darwinism, psychoanalysis, and Zionism to construct a rich portrait of Kafka in his world. A work of both art and scholarship, Selected Stories transforms our understanding and appreciation of a singular imagination. Hardcover304 pagesBelknap Press, 20245.5 x .87 x 8.25 inchesISBN 9780674737983 Franz Kafka, Short Stories

F. Kafka: Selected Stories

By Franz KafkaSelected and with an Introduction by Joshua CohenA new selection of Franz Kafka’s shorter fiction and nonfiction work, selected and with a preface by Book of Numbers author Joshua Cohen.“Being asked to write about Kafka is like being asked to describe the Great Wall of China by someone who’s standing just next to it. The only honest thing to do is point.” —Joshua Cohen, from his foreword to He: Shorter Writings of Franz KafkaThis is a Kafka emergency kit, a congregation of the brief, the minor works that are actually major. Joshua Cohen has produced a frame that refuses distinctions between what is a story, a letter, a workplace memo, and a diary entry, also including popular favorites like The Bucket Rider, The Penal Colony, and The Burrow. Here we see Kafka’s preoccupations in writing about animals, messiah variations, food, and exercise, each in his signature style.Cohen’s selection emphasizes the stately structure of utterly coherent logic within an utterly incoherent and illogical world, showing how Kafka harnessed the humblest grammar to metamorphic power, until the predominant effect ceases to be the presence of an unreliable narrator but the absence of the universe’s only reliable narrator—God. Paperback320 pagesPicador Paper, 20224.93 x 0.75 x 7.5 inchesISBN 9780374538941 Franz Kafka, Short Stories

He: Shorter Writings of Franz Kafka

Contributions by Tommy Orange, Ali Smith, Naomi Alderman, Elif Batuman and Helen OyeyemiWhat happens when Kafka’s idiosyncratic imagination meets some of the greatest literary minds writing in English across the globe today? Find out in this anthology of brand-new Kafka-inspired short stories by prizewinning, bestselling writers.Franz Kafka is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most enigmatic geniuses of European literature. He’s been hailed a profit and a diagnostician, and a century after his death, his unique perspective on the anxieties, injustices, and rapidly shifting belief systems of the modern world continues to speak to our contemporary moment. From a future society who ask their AI servants to construct a giant tower to reach God; to an apartment search that descends into a comically absurd bureaucratic nightmare; to a population experiencing a wave of unbearable, contagious panic attacks, these ten specially commissioned stories are by turns mind-bending, funny, unsettling and haunting. Inspired by a twentieth-century visionary, they speak powerfully to the strangeness of being alive today.Paperback208 pagesCatapult, 20245.5 x 8.25 inchesISBN 9781646222636 Franz Kafka, Short Story Anthology

A Cage Went in Search of a Bird (Ten Kafkaesque Short Stories)

Edited by Diana Secker Tesdell “An excellent new anthology. . . . I’ve long admired Tesdell’s Everyman’s Pocket Classic thematic anthologies for their judicious story selections. Like some of the artists depicted in this one, she creates works that are pleasing, beautiful and surprising.” —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Stories of Art and Artists gathers two centuries of classic stories from around the world. From Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Artist of the Beautiful” and Albert Camus’s “The Artist at Work” to Bernard Malamud’s “Rembrandt’s Hat” and Aimee Bender’s “The Color Master,” the tales collected here range from haunting fables about the power of art to vivid portraits of those who create.Writers have long been fascinated by the idea of artistic genius, the relationship between portraits and their subjects, the inspirational role of muses, and the effects on artists of ambition, failure, and success. Art forms featured in these pages include sculpture, pottery, architecture, miniatures, landscapes, portraits, and abstract painting, illumined in brilliant stories by such great writers as Honoré de Balzac, Hermann Hesse, Franz Kafka, Marguerite Yourcenar, John Berger, William Boyd, Doris Lessing, Valerie Martin, Julian Barnes, Orhan Pamuk, and A. S. Byatt. Their dazzling literary evocations of the visual arts—using one art form to reflect on another—make Stories of Art and Artists an irresistible gift for lovers of art of all kinds.Hardcover400 pagesEveryman's Library, 20144.25 x 7.25 inchesISBN 9780375712494Short Stories, Fiction

Stories of Art and Artists

By Nishioka KyodaiTranslated by David Yang A sublimely eerie manga adaptation of classic Kafka stories, with a starkly beautiful illustration style – part of Pushkin’s second series of Japanese novellasNine of Franz Kafka’s most memorable tales are here given fresh life with dazzling graphic renderings by the brother-and sister manga creators Nishioka Kyodai. With their distinctive, surreal style of illustration, they have reimagined the fantastic, the imperceptible and the bizarre in Kafka’s work, creating a hauntingly powerful visual world.These stories of enigmatic figures and uncanny transformations are stripped to their core, offering profound new understandings.Includes The Metamorphosis, A Hunger Artist, In the Penal Colony, A Country Doctor and more.Paperback176 pagesPushkin Press, 20235.75 x 0.41 x 8.28 inchesISBN 9781782279846Graphic Novel, Franz Kafka

Kafka: A Graphic Novel Adaptation

By Franz KafkaTranslated by Alexander Starritt 'A welcome distillation of Kafka's short fiction, essential indeed.' —Kirkus Reviews'The Unhappiness of Being a Single Man nicely makes a case that readers should not forget Kafka's sly sense of humor and, of course, his humanity, when considering his impact on culture.' —Noah Cruickshank, Forefront, in Shelf Awareness The best stories by the one of the twentieth century's greatest and most influential writersNo one has captured the modern experience, its wild dreams, strange joys, its neuroses and boredom, better than Franz Kafka. His vision, with its absurdity and twisted humour, has lost none of its force or relevance today. This essential collection, translated and selected by Alexander Starritt, casts fresh light on Kafka's genius.Alongside brutal depictions of violence and justice are jokes and deceptively slight, mysterious fables. These unforgettable pieces reflect the brilliance at the core of Franz Kafka, arguably most fully expressed within his short stories. Together they showcase a writer of unmatched imaginative depth, capable of expressing the most profound reality with a wry smile. Paperback192 pagesPushkin Press Classics, 20235 x 0.6 x 7.75 inchesISBN 9781805330400Fiction, Short Stories

The Unhappiness of Being a Single Man: Essential Stories (Pushkin Press Classics)

Original Price: $45.00 UP TO 20% ADDITIONAL SAVINGS FOR MEMBERS Signed copies from translator Ross Benjamin are available. This book was featured as part of our Literatur Café series. By Franz Kafka Translated by Ross Benjamin “Essential . . . The new volume, in a sensitive and briskly idiomatic translation by Ross Benjamin, offers revelation upon revelation. It’s an invaluable addition to Kafka’s oeuvre.”—The New York Times “Franz Kafka’s inner life has always been a bit of a mystery. The expurgated diaries in their original German and English versions hinted at his complicated, often confused relationship to sex, politics, illness, and being Jewish. This readable new translation of the complete German version of the diary transforms the silent Kafka of a century ago into a Kafka not only of his times but of ours.”—Sander Gilman, author of Franz Kafka, The Jewish PatientAn essential new translation of the author’s complete, uncensored diaries—a revelation of the idiosyncrasies and rough edges of one of the twentieth century’s most influential writers.Dating from 1909 to 1923, the handwritten diaries contain various kinds of writing: accounts of daily events, reflections, observations, literary sketches, drafts of letters, accounts of dreams, as well as finished stories. This volume makes available for the first time in English a comprehensive reconstruction of the diary entries and provides substantial new content, including details, names, literary works, and passages of a sexual nature that were omitted from previous publications. By faithfully reproducing the diaries’ distinctive—and often surprisingly unpolished—writing in Kafka’s notebooks, translator Ross Benjamin brings to light not only the author’s use of the diaries for literary experimentation and private self-expression, but also their value as a work of art in themselves.Hardcover704 pagesSchocken, 20236.2 x 9.25 inchesISBN 9780805243550Literature, Kafka

The Diaries of Franz Kafka

By Andreas Kilcher and Pavel Schmidt Contributions by Judith Butler Translated by Kurt Beals The first book to publish the entirety of Franz Kafka’s graphic output, including more than 100 newly discovered drawings “A sensational new book [that] reveals these hitherto hidden artworks for the first time . . . This valuable volume allows us to see how, for Kafka, word and image walk arm in arm.”—Benjamin Balint, Jewish Review of Books The year 2019 brought a sensational discovery: hundreds of drawings by the writer Franz Kafka (1883–1924) were found in a private collection that for decades had been kept under lock and key. Until now, only a few of Kafka’s drawings were widely known. Although Kafka is renowned for his written work, his drawings are evidence of what his literary executor Max Brod termed his “double talent.” Irresistible and full of fascinating figures, shifting from the realistic to the fantastic, the grotesque, the uncanny, and the carnivalesque, they illuminate a previously unknown side of the quintessential modernist author. Kafka’s drawings span his full career, but he drew most intensively in his university years, between 1901 and 1907. An entire booklet of drawings from this period is among the many new discoveries, along with dozens of loose sheets. Published for the first time in English, these newly available materials are collected with his known works in a complete catalogue raisonné of more than 240 illustrations, reproduced in full color. Essays by Andreas Kilcher and Judith Butler provide essential background for this lavish volume, interpreting the drawings in their own right while also reconciling their place in Kafka’s larger oeuvre.Hardcover368 pagesYale University Press, 20228.31 x 1.38 x 11.77 inchesISBN 9780300260663Artist Monograph, Modernism

Franz Kafka: The Drawings [Hardcover]

By Elias Canetti “Perhaps the most revealing essay on Kafka ever published. At last Kafka is matched in thought and prose.”—The Times Literary Supplement Felice Bauer was Kafka’s first great love and the inspiration for his first great fiction. Six weeks after they met, he wrote "The Judgement" for her in one night of feverish activity. Kafka always inferred to the traumatic, public breaking-off of their engagement as his “tribunal,” and indeed he began work on The Trial within a month of that event.Kafka’s letters to Felice offer rare insights into the writer’s life and art. Elias Canetti’s brilliant and sensitive examination of this moving correspondence shows the origins of Kafka’s voice as a writer and his torment as a man. Paperback188 pagesSchocken, 1988Originally published in 19695.2 x 0.4 x 7.8 inchesISBN 9780805207057Literature, Biography, Non-Fiction

Kafka's Other Trial: The Letters to Felice

By Franz KafkaTranslated 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. Hardcover160 pagesW. W. Norton & Company, 20186.6 x 0.6 x 9.5 inchesISBN 9780393635621Graphic Novel, Short Stories

Kafkaesque: Fourteen Stories

By Franz KafkaTranslated by Willa and Edwin Muir “Kafka engaged in no technical experiments whatsoever; without in any way changing the German language, he stripped it of its involved constructions until it became clear and simple, like everyday speech purified of slang and negligence. The common experience of Kafka’s readers is one of general and vague fascination, even in stories they fail to understand, a precise recollection of strange and seemingly absurd images and descriptions—until one day the hidden meaning reveals itself to them with the sudden evidence of a truth simple and incontestable.” —Hannah Arendt This collection brings together the stories that Kafka allowed to be published during his lifetime. To Max Brod, his literary executor, he wrote: "Of all my writings the only books that can stand are these." Paperback315 pagesThe Schocken Kafka Library, 1995The Metamorphosis was originally published in 19155.2 x 0.6 x 8 inchesISBN 9780805210576Short Stories

The Metamorphosis & Other Stories

Original Price: $24.95 UP TO 20% ADDITIONAL SAVINGS FOR MEMBERS By Reiner StachTranslated by Shelley Frisch One of The Guardian Best Books of 2013, chosen by Colm Tóibín"Most impressive is Stach's recounting of the creation of his subject's writings. . . . Stach's own writing is wonderfully expressive."—Publishers Weekly, starred review"A scrupulous, discriminating, and highly instructive account of Kafka's life."—Robert Alter, New Republic"This extraordinary biography fills the empty spaces between Kafka's own writings and the writings of friends, family, and contemporaries with so much empathy and imagination that one can't put it down."—Frankfurter Rundschau How did Kafka become Kafka? This eagerly anticipated third and final volume of Reiner Stach's definitive biography of the writer answers that question with more facts and insight than ever before, describing the complex personal, political, and cultural circumstances that shaped the young Franz Kafka (1883–1924). It tells the story of the years from his birth in Prague to the beginning of his professional and literary career in 1910, taking the reader up to just before the breakthrough that resulted in his first masterpieces, including "The Metamorphosis". Brimming with vivid and often startling details, Stach’s narrative invites readers deep inside this neglected period of Kafka’s life. The book’s richly atmospheric portrait of his German Jewish merchant family and his education, psychological development, and sexual maturation draws on numerous sources, some still unpublished, including family letters, schoolmates’ memoirs, and early diaries of his close friend Max Brod. The biography also provides a colorful panorama of Kafka’s wider world, especially the convoluted politics and culture of Prague. Before World War I, Kafka lived in a society at the threshold of modernity but torn by conflict, and Stach provides poignant details of how the adolescent Kafka witnessed violent outbreaks of anti-Semitism and nationalism. The reader also learns how he developed a passionate interest in new technologies, particularly movies and airplanes, and why another interest―his predilection for the back-to-nature movement―stemmed from his “nervous” surroundings rather than personal eccentricity. The crowning volume to a masterly biography, this is an unmatched account of how a boy who grew up in an old Central European monarchy became a writer who helped create modern literature. Paperback584 pagesPrinceton University Press; reprint edition, 2017Originally published in 20146.1 x 1.6 x 9.2 inchesISBN 9780691178189Biography, Literary Criticism

Kafka: The Early Years [Paperback]

By Franz KafkaTranslated by Michael Hofmann A masterful new translation by Michael Hofmann of some of Kafka's most fantastical and visionary short fiction "Hofmann and Kafka. . . provide one with rich intellectual companionship."—Diana Darke, The Times Literary Supplement "Hofmann’s translation is invaluable—it achieves what translations are supposedly unable to do: it is at once ‘loyal’ and ‘beautiful.’"—New Republic"This New Directions release of Investigations of a Dog provides an opportunity to reconsider many of Kafka’s greatest stories in a new book, with beautiful cover design, and to reexamine how a brilliant mind performed under spiritually backbreaking circumstances."—Nathan Scott McNamara, Los Angeles Review of Books Animals, strange beasts, bureaucrats, businessmen, and nightmares populate this collection of stories by Franz Kafka. These matchless short works, all unpublished during Kafka’s lifetime, range from the gleeful dialogue between a cat and a mouse in "Little Fable" to the absurd humor of "Investigations of a Dog", from the elaborate waking nightmare of "Building the Great Wall of China" to the creeping unease of "The Burrow", where a nameless creature’s labyrinthine hiding place turns into a trap of fear and paranoia. Paperback239 pagesNew Directions, 2017Originally published in 19315.3 x 0.7 x 8 inchesISBN 9780811226899Short Story, Psychological Fiction

Investigations of a Dog: And Other Creatures

By Franz KafkaTranslated by Anthea Bell "K. kept feeling that he had lost himself, or was further away in a strange land than anyone had ever been before". A remote village covered almost permanently in snow and dominated by a castle and its staff of dictatorial, sexually predatory bureaucrats - this is the setting for Kafka's story about a man seeking both acceptance in the village and access to the castle. Kafka breaks new ground in evoking a dense village community fraught with tensions, and recounting an often poignant, occasionally farcical love-affair. He also explores the relation between the individual and power, and asks why the villagers so readily submit to an authority which may exist only in their collective imagination. Published only after Kafka's death, The Castle appeared in the same decade as modernist masterpieces by Eliot, Joyce, Woolf, Mann and Proust, and is among the central works of modern literature. This translation follows the text established by critical scholarship, and manuscript variants are mentioned in the notes. The introduction provides guidance to the text without reducing the reader's own freedom to make sense of this fascinatingly enigmatic novel.Paperback336 pagesOxford University Press, 2009 Originally published in 19267.7 x 1 x 5 inchesISBN 9780199238286Fiction

By Reiner Stach Out of the massive research for an authoritative 1,500-page biography emerges this wunderkammer of 99 delightfully odd facts about Kafka. "If, like me, you are wary of delving into a three-volume account of the life of an ascetic and self-tormenting insurance lawyer, Stach has by some inexplicable thunderbolt of inspiration supplemented his enormous undertaking with a separate volume of biographical detritus, which he suggestively calls ‘counter-images’, titled Is that Kafka? 99 Finds."—Morten Høi Jensen, Los Angeles Review of Books "A mishmash of ephemera, curiosities and confessionals, the finds range from the banal to the deeply personal, yet collectively paint as engaging and illustrative a portrait of the artist as any I’ve read."—Pasha Malla, Globe and Mail "Each turn Stach makes adds nuance to his skillfully collaged portrait of Kafka."—Evan James, Quarterly Conversation In the course of compiling his highly acclaimed three-volume biography of Kafka, while foraying to libraries and archives from Prague to Israel, Reiner Stach made one astounding discovery after another: unexpected photographs, inconsistencies in handwritten texts, excerpts from letters, and testimonies from Kafka’s contemporaries that shed surprising light on his personality and his writing. Is that Kafka? presents the crystal granules of the real Kafka: he couldn’t lie, but he tried to cheat on his high-school exams; bitten by the fitness fad, he avidly followed the regime of a Danish exercise guru; he drew beautifully; he loved beer; he read biographies voraciously; he made the most beautiful presents, especially for children; odd things made him cry or made him furious; he adored slapstick. Every discovery by Stach turns on its head the stereotypical version of the tortured neurotic―and as each one chips away at the monolithic dark Kafka, the keynote, of all things, becomes laughter.For Is that Kafka? Stach has assembled 99 of his most exciting discoveries, culling the choicest, most entertaining bits, and adding his knowledge-able commentaries. Illustrated with dozens of previously unknown images, this volume is a singular literary pleasure. Hardcover352 pagesNew Directions, 20165.8 x 1.2 x 8.3 inchesISBN 9780811221238Biography

Is that Kafka?: 99 Finds [Hardcover]

By Franz KafkaTranslated by Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins“This is the closest we have to Kafka’s memoirs, a story of mutual misunderstanding and alienation, charted in a series of evocatively sketched scenes . . . For all its power of psychological analysis, the tone is rarely self-pitying but almost forensically detached . . . The fact that Kafka nearly always gives his father the benefit of the doubt makes his accusations all the more devastating.”—Carolin Duttlinger, The Times Literary Supplement“Kafka’s principal attempt at self-clarification is also one of the great confessions of literature.”—F. W. Dupee, The New York Times Book ReviewFranz Kafka wrote this letter to his father, Hermann Kafka, in November 1919. Max Brod, Kafka's literary executor, relates that Kafka actually gave the letter to his mother to hand to his father, hoping it might renew a relationship that had lost itself in tension and frustration on both sides. But Kafka's probing of the deep flaw in their relationship spared neither his father nor himself. He could not help seeing the failure of communication between father and son as another moment in the larger existential predicament depicted in so much of his work. Probably realizing the futility of her son's gesture, Julie Kafka did not deliver the letter but instead returned it to its author.Paperback121 pagesText in English and GermanSchocken Books, 2015Originally published in 19525.2 x 0.4 x 8 inches ISBN 9780805212662Letters and Correspondence, Biography

Letter to the Father

By Sander L. Gilman "Recognises that comprehensive, overarching interpretations . . . attenuate or simply miss the sheer strangeness of Kafka’s fictional world."—Jonathan Derbyshire, Financial TimesThe conflation of reality and the fantastic, ambiguity, the relentless confrontation with horror, the fractured sense of identity: Franz Kafka created a wholly unique and enduring worldview through his literature and life, and he remains one of the central intellectual and cultural figures of our time. Sander L. Gilman brings together Kafka's literary works, personal writings, and biography to create a compelling and wholly accessible narrative of the literary master's life.Gilman focuses on the relationship between Kafka's life and work, reconstructing both Kafka's cultural environment and the writer's conceptual understanding of his own body. Kafka's letters, diaries, and writings emerge in Gilman's analysis as windows into his ongoing attempt to create an identity in a world where being a Central European Jew dictated an uneasy fate. The volume emphasizes in particular the image and role of the Jew in Kafka's modern world and how Kafka responded to prevailing attitudes, repressive actions, and stereotypes in society at large. Gilman also examines the influence of psychoanalytic ideas on Kafka and his works, exploring how Kafka wove such psychoanalytic experiences into his literature. Gilman concludes with consideration of the "Kafka-myth" and the wealth of material emerging from it over the past eighty years, including work by such illustrious minds as Walter Benjamin and Ted Hughes. Franz Kafka features illuminating archival photographs and illustrations as well as a comprehensive bibliography and filmography of work by and about Kafka. This succinct yet penetrating volume offers valuable and original insight into how Kafka's life and work shaped how we perceive our modern society and how, indeed, some aspect of the world is always "Kafkaesque."Paperback160 pagesReaktion Books, 20055 x 0.4 x 7.9 inchesISBN 9781861892546Biography, Literary Criticism

Franz Kafka: Critical Lives

By Franz KafkaTranslated and with a preface by Mark Harman “[Harman’s translation is] semantically accurate to an admirable degree, faithful to Kafka’s nuances, and responsive to the tempo of his sentences and to the larger music of his paragraph construction. For the general reader or for the student, it will be the translation of preference for some time to come.”—J. M. Coetzee, The New York Review of Books “The new Schocken edition of The Castle represents a major and long-awaited event in English-language publishing. It is a wonderful piece of news for all Kafka readers who, for more than half a century, have had to rely on flawed, superannuated editions. Mark Harman is to be commended for his success in capturing the fresh, fluid, almost breathless style of Kafka’s original manuscript, which leaves the reader hanging in mid-sentence.”—Mark M. AndersonFranz Kafka's final novel tells the haunting tale of a man known only as K. and of his relentless, unavailing struggle with an inscrutable authority in order to gain entrance to the Castle. Although Kafka seemed to consider The Castle a failure, critics, in wrestling with its enigmatic meaning, have recognized it as one of the great novels of our century. Unfinished at Kafka's death in 1924, the manuscript of The Castle was edited for publication by Kafka's friend and literary executor, Max Brod. Both Brod's edition and the English-language translation of it that was prepared by Willa and Edwin Muir in 1930 have long been considered flawed. This new edition of Kafka's terrifying and comic masterpiece is the product of an international team of experts who went back to Kafka's original manuscript and notes to create an edition that is as close as possible to the way the author left it. The Times Literary Supplement hailed their work, saying that it will "decisively alter our understanding of Kafka and render previous editions obsolete." Mark Harman's brilliant translation closely follows the fluidity and breathlessness of the sparsely punctuated original manuscript, revealing levels of comedy, energy, and visual power that have not been previously accessible to English-language readers. W. H. Auden likened Kafka to Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe as the single most important writer of his age. Here, in this new edition, is a Kafka for the twenty-first century.Paperback352 pagesSchocken Books, 1999Originally published in 19265.2 x 8.5 x 0.7 inchesISBN 9780805211061Fiction

Original Price: $35.99 UP TO 20% ADDITIONAL SAVINGS FOR MEMBERS Edited by Julian PreeceUniversity of Kent, CanterburyContributors: Julian Preece, David Constantine, Anne Fuchs, Rolf J. Goebel, Elizabeth Boa, Ruth V. Gross, Stanley Corngold, Bill Dodd, Iris Bruce, Dagmar C. G. Lorenz, Anthony Northey, Osman Durrani, Helen Hughes, Martin Brady "...a welcome addition to Kafka scholarship."—Germanic Notes and Reviews "This collection of essays holds true to the promise of its title: it is a trustworthy and helpful companion for those, be they scholar or aficionado, who seek up-to-date and well-considered observations on the writings of one of the 20th century's greatest but most enigmatic writers....[A]ll of the contributions are first-rate: they are written clearly and persuasively with authority and sophistication, and they represent a broad spectrrm of critical approaches." ChoiceThis companion of specially-commissioned essays offers a comprehensive account of his life and work, providing a rounded contemporary appraisal of Central Europe's most distinctive Modernist. Contributions cover all the key texts, and discuss Kafka's writing in a variety of critical contexts such as feminism, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, Marxism, and Jewish studies. The essays are enhanced by supplementary material including a chronology of the period and detailed guides to further reading. They will be of interest to students of German, European and Comparative Literature, and Jewish Studies.Paperback280 pagesCambridge University Press, 20026 x 0.7 x 9 inchesISBN 9780521663915 Literary Criticism, Essays

The Cambridge Companion to Kafka

By Franz KafkaTranslated by Michael Hofmann “I think of a Kafka story as a perfect work of literary art, as approachable as it is strange, and as strange as it is approachable.” —Michael HofmannFor all his fame, Franz Kafka published only a small number of stories in his lifetime. This new translation of those stories, by Michael Hofmann, one of the most respected German-to-English translators at work today, makes Kafka's best-known works available to a new generation of readers. Metamorphosis gives full expression to the breadth of Kafka's literary vision and the extraordinary depth of his imagination.Franz Kafka was born in 1883 in Prague, where he lived most of his life. During his lifetime, he published only a few short stories, including "The Metamorphosis", "The Judgment", and "The Stoker". He died in 1924, before completing any of his full-length novels. At the end of his life, Kafka asked his lifelong friend and literary executor Max Brod to burn all his unpublished work. Brod overrode those wishes.Paperback320 pagesPenguin Classics Deluxe Edition, 2008Originally published in 19155.7 x 0.8 x 8.4 inchesISBN 9780143105244Short Stories, Fiction

Metamorphosis and Other Stories

By Franz KafkaNewly Translated and with a preface by Breon Mitchell "Kafka’s ‘legalese’ is alchemically fused with a prose of great verve and intense readability."—James Rolleston, professor of Germanic languages and literatures, Duke University"Breon Mitchell’s translation is an accomplishment of the highest order that will honor Kafka far into the twenty-first century."—Walter Abish, author of How German Is ItWritten in 1914, The Trial is one of the most important novels of the twentieth century: the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, Kafka's nightmare has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers. This new edition is based upon the work of an international team of experts who have restored the text, the sequence of chapters, and their division to create a version that is as close as possible to the way the author left it.In his brilliant translation, Breon Mitchell masterfully reproduces the distinctive poetics of Kafka's prose, revealing a novel that is as full of energy and power as it was when it was first written. Franz Kafka was born in 1883 in Prague, where he lived most of his life. During his lifetime, he published only a few short stories, including "The Metamorphosis", "The Judgment", and "The Stoker". He died in 1924, before completing any of his full-length novels. At the end of his life, Kafka asked his lifelong friend and literary executor Max Brod to burn all his unpublished work. Brod overrode those wishes. Paperback304 pagesRandom House, 1999Originally published in 19255.2 x 0.6 x 8 inchesISBN 9780805209990Fiction

The Trial

By Franz KafkaTranslated by Mike Mitchell 'Someone must have been telling tales about Josef K. for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.' A successful professional man wakes up one morning to find himself under arrest for an offence which is never explained. The mysterious court which conducts his trial is outwardly co-operative, but capable of horrific violence. Faced with this ambiguous authority, Josef K. gradually succumbs to its psychological pressure. He consults various advisers without escaping his fate. Was there some way out that he failed to see? Kafka's unfinished novel has been read as a study of political power, a pessimistic religious parable, or a crime novel where the accused man is himself the problem. One of the iconic figures of modern world literature, Kafka writes about universal problems of guilt, responsibility, and freedom; he offers no solutions, but provokes his readers to arrive at meanings of their own. This new edition includes the fragmentary chapters that were omitted from the main text, in a translation that is both natural and exact, and an introduction that illuminates the novel and its author. Paperback240 pagesOxford University Press, 2009Originally published in 19257.6 x 0.6 x 5 inchesISBN 9780199238293Fiction

By Franz KafkaNewly translated by Joyce Crick'When Gregor Samsa woke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed into some kind of monstrous vermin.' With a bewildering blend of the everyday and the fantastical, Kafka thus begins his most famous short story, "The Metamorphosis". A commercial traveler is unexpectedly freed from his dreary job by his inexplicable transformation into an insect, which drastically alters his relationship with his family. Kafka considered publishing it with two of the stories included here in a volume to be called Punishments. "The Judgement" also concerns family tensions, when a power struggle between father and son ends with the father passing an enigmatic judgement on the helpless son. The third story, "In the Penal Colony", explores questions of power, justice, punishment, and the meaning of pain in a colonial setting. These three stories are flanked by two very different works. Meditation, the first book Kafka published, consists of light, whimsical, often poignant mood-pictures, while in the autobiographical Letter to his Father, Kafka analyses his difficult relationship in forensic and devastating detail.Paperback146 pagesOxford University Press, 20097.7 x 0.8 x 5 inchesISBN 9780199238552Fiction, Short Stories

The Metamorphosis and Other Stories

Translated by Peter Wortsman Bringing together tales of melancholy and madness, nightmare and fantasy, this is a new collection of the most haunting German stories from the past 200 years. Ranging from the Romantics of the early nineteenth century to works of contemporary fiction, it includes Hoffmann's hallucinatory portrait of terror and insanity The Sandman; Chamisso's influential black masterpiece Peter Schlemiel, where a man barters his own shadow; Kafka's chilling, disturbing satire In the Penal Colony; the Dadaist surrealism of Kurt Schwitters' The Onion; and Bachmann's modern fairy tale The Secrets of the Princess of Kagran. Macabre, dreamlike and expressing deep unconscious fears, these stories are also spiked with unsettling humour, showing stylistic daring as well as giving insight into the darkest recesses of the human condition. Peter Wortsman's powerful translations are accompanied by brief overviews of the lives of each author, and an introduction discussing the notion of 'angst' and the stories' place in the context of German history. Paperback372 pagesPenguin Classics, 20135.1 x 0.9 x 7.8 inchesISBN 9780141198804Short Stories

Tales of the German Imagination

By Franz KafkaNewly Translated by Ritchie RobertsonEntering New York harbor, the young immigrant Karl Rossmann sees the Statue of Liberty, "her arm with the sword stretched upward." This forbidding introduction sets the tone for Kafka's narrative about an innocent European astray in an ultra-modern America that is both a fantasy and an object of social satire. Full of incident and blackly humorous, Kafka's first novel portrays American civilization with horrified fascination, in a biting satire which gives fresh meaning to the term "Kafkaesque." Ritchie Robertson's sensitive and natural translation is both faithful to Kafka's style and highly readable. Moreover, this is the only edition to provide a full introduction and explanatory notes. The introduction explains why Kafka set the novel in America, a country he had never visited, what his sources of information were, and how he distorts his fictional America for satirical purposes. The notes incorporate the most recent Kafka scholarship to illuminate difficult parts of the text. In addition, a Biographical Preface provides an account of Kafka's life. The book also includes an up-to-date bibliography and a chronology.Paperback215 pagesOxford University Press, 2012Originally published in 19277.7 x 0.7 x 5.1 inchesISBN 9780199601127Fiction

The Man Who Disappeared (America)

By Franz Kafka Translated by Willa and Edwin MuirFranz Kafka’s imagination so far outstripped the forms and conventions of the literary tradition he inherited that he was forced to turn that tradition inside out in order to tell his splendid, mysterious tales. Scrupulously naturalistic on the surface, uncanny in their depths, these stories represent the achieved art of a modern master who had the gift of making our problematic spiritual life palpable and real. Hardcover560 pagesEveryman's Library, 19935.3 x 1.2 x 8.3 inchesISBN 9780679423034Fiction

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