Franz Kafka

By Franz Kafka Edited by Reiner Stach Translated by Shelley Frisch "Taut translations. . . . Indispensable commentary."—Max Norman, Wall Street Journal"An astute and subtle commentary. . . . The intellectual risks of commenting on the comments of Kafka are enormous, but Stach takes them in his stride, and Shelley Frisch’s English version keeps pace admirably."—Michael Wood, London Review of Books“In Shelley Frisch’s inspired translation and Reiner Stach’s lucid decipherment, Kafka’s crystalline aphorisms—his most beautifully faceted and intricately intimate creations—reveal themselves anew.”—Benjamin Balint, author of Kafka’s Last TrialA splendid new translation of an extraordinary work of modern literature—featuring facing-page commentary by Kafka’s acclaimed biographer.In 1917 and 1918, Franz Kafka wrote a set of more than 100 aphorisms, known as the Zürau aphorisms, after the Bohemian village in which he composed them. Among the most mysterious of Kafka’s writings, they explore philosophical questions about truth, good and evil, and the spiritual and sensory world. This is the first annotated, bilingual volume of these extraordinary writings, which provide great insight into Kafka’s mind. Edited, introduced, and with commentaries by preeminent Kafka biographer and authority Reiner Stach, and freshly translated by Shelley Frisch, this beautiful volume presents each aphorism on its own page in English and the original German, with accessible and enlightening notes on facing pages.The most complex of Kafka’s writings, the aphorisms merge literary and analytical thinking and are radical in their ideas, original in their images and metaphors, and exceptionally condensed in their language. Offering up Kafka’s characteristically unsettling charms, the aphorisms at times put readers in unfamiliar, even inhospitable territory, which can then turn luminous: “I have never been in this place before: breathing works differently, and a star shines next to the sun, more dazzlingly still.”Above all, this volume reveals that these multifaceted gems aren’t far removed from Kafka’s novels and stories but are instead situated squarely within his cosmos—arguably at its very core. Long neglected by Kafka readers and scholars, his aphorisms have finally been given their full due here.Paperback256 pages | 9 black-and-white illustrationsText in English and German Princeton University Press, 2023Originally published in 19315.5 x 8.5 inchesISBN 9780691254784Literature, German Literature Criticism

The Aphorisms of Franz Kafka [Paperback]

By Franz KafkaTranslated by Stanley ApplebaumStudents of German language and literature will welcome this collection of 5 stories by one of the greatest modern writers.Included are "The Metamorphosis", "The Judgment", "In the Penal Colony", "A Country Doctor" and "A Report to an Academy". Original German texts accompanied by new, literal English translations on facing pages.Table of Contents for Best Short Stories: A Dual-Language Book:"The Judgment" ("Das Urteil"; better translation of title, "The Sentence"; written night of Sept. 22/23, 1912; first pub. in the annual magazine Arkadia, Leipzig, 1913; first book pub., Kurt Wolff Verlag, Leipzig, 1916)"The Metamorphosis" ("Die Verwandlung"; alternate translation of title, "The Transformation"; written Nov. 17-Dec. 6, 1912; first pub. in the monthly Die weißen Blätter, Leipzig, Oct. 1915; first book pub., Kurt Wolff Verlag, Leipzig, 1915)"In the Penal Colony" ("In der Strafkolonie"; written mid-Oct. 1914; first pub. As book, Kurt Wolff Verlag, Leipzig, 1919)"A Country Doctor" ("Ein Landarzt"; written in the winter of 1916/1917, completed by the end of Feb. 1917; first pub. In the almanac Die neue Dichtung, Leipzig, 1918; first book pub. In collected vol. Ein Landarzt, Kurt Wolff Verlag, Munich and Leipzig, 1919)"A Report to an Academy" ("Ein Bericht für eine Akademie"; composition finished by Apr. 22, 1917; first pub. In the monthly Der Jude, Berlin and Vienna, Nov. 1917; first book pub. In collected vol. Ein Landarzt, Kurt Volff Verlg, Munkch and Leipzig, 1919) Paperback208 pagesText in German and EnglishDover Publications, 19975.5 x 0.5 x 8.8 inchesISBN 9780486295619German Language Instruction, Short Stories

Best Short Stories: A Dual-Language Book [English/German]

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 19265-1/16 x 7-3/4 InchesISBN 9780241678916Literature, Fiction

The Castle (Penguin Classics)

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

The Castle

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

Collected Stories

By Franz KafkaEdited by Nahum N. GlatzerForeword by John Updike “The distinction Kafka, or his heroes, draw between this world and the world does not imply that there are two different worlds, only that our habitual conceptions of reality are not the true conception.”—W. H. Auden “An important book, valuable in itself and absolutely fascinating. The stories are dreamlike, allegorical, symbolic, parabolic, grotesque, ritualistic, nasty, lucent, extremely personal, ghoulishly detached, exquisitely comic, numinous, and prophetic.”—The New York Times The Complete Stories brings together all of Kafka’s stories, from the classic tales such as “The Metamorphosis,” “In the Penal Colony,” and “A Hunger Artist” to shorter pieces and fragments that Max Brod, Kafka’s literary executor, released after Kafka’s death. With the exception of his three novels, the whole of Kafka’s narrative work is included in this volume. 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.Paperback512 pages Schocken Books Inc., 1995Originally published in 1971 (edited by Nahum N. Glatzer) 5.2 x 1 x 8 inchesISBN 9780805210552Short Stories

The Complete Stories

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

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

Von Franz Kafka Phantastisches und Unheimliches, Paradoxes und Absurdes: Kafka beschreibt die unglaublichsten Sachverhalte nüchtern und minutiös. Grenzbereiche werden ausgeleuchtet, existenzielle Grund- oder Ausnahmesituationen in unvergessliche Bilder gefasst. Seine Texte haben die gleiche Intensität wie Träume. »Es ist das Schicksal und vielleicht auch die Größe dieses Werks, dass es alle Möglichkeiten darbietet und keine bestätigt« (Albert Camus).Paperback575 pagesText in GermanFischer Verlage, 1997Originally published in 19354.7 x 1.3 x 7.5 inchesISBN 9783596132706Short Stories

Die Erzählungen

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

By Franz Kafka Translated from the German by Michael Hofmann "If the mundane is, for Kafka, the domain of improbability and impossibility—wherein even the simplest of gestures cannot be guaranteed—the extraordinary is evoked with an air of sheer certitude."—Ari Linden, Public Books "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 Hofmann A windfall for every reader: a trove of marvelous impossible-to-find Kafka stories in a masterful new translation by Michael HofmannSo, you want to leave me? Well, one decision is as good as another. Where will you go? Where is away-from-me? On the moon? Not even that is far enough, and you’ll never get there. So why the fuss? Wouldn’t you rather sit down in a corner somewhere, and be quiet? Wouldn’t that be an improvement? A warm, dark corner? Aren’t you listening? You’re feeling for the door. Well, where is it? So far as I remember, this room doesn’t have one. At the time this was built, no one had imagined such earth-shattering plans as yours. Well, no matter, a thought like yours won’t get lost, we will discuss it over dinner, and our laughter will be your reward.Selected by the preeminent Kafka biographer and scholar Reiner Stach and newly translated by the peerless Michael Hofmann, the seventy-four pieces gathered here have been lost to sight for decades and two of them have never been translated into English before. Some stories are several pages long; some run about a page; a handful are only a few lines long: all are marvels. Even the most fragmentary texts are revelations. These pieces were drawn from two large volumes of the S. Fischer Verlag edition Nachgelassene Schriften und Fragmente (totaling some 1100 pages).“Franz Kafka is the master of the literary fragment,” as Stach comments in his afterword: “In no other European author does the proportion of completed and published works loom quite so…small in the overall mass of his papers, which consist largely of broken-off beginnings.” In fact, as Hofmann recently added: “‘Finished’ seems to me, in the context of Kafka, a dubious or ironic condition, anyway. The more finished, the less finished. The less finished, the more finished. Gregor Samsa’s sister Grete getting up to stretch in the streetcar. What kind of an ending is that?! There’s perhaps some distinction to be made between ‘finished’ and ‘ended.’ Everything continues to vibrate or unsettle, anyway. Reiner Stach points out that none of the three novels were ‘completed.’ Some pieces break off, or are concluded, or stop—it doesn’t matter!—after two hundred pages, some after two lines. The gusto, the friendliness, the wit with which Kafka launches himself into these things is astonishing.”Hardcover128 pagesNew Directions, 20204.5 x 7.3 inchesISBN 9780811228015 Literature, Kafka

Kafka: The Lost Writings

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 KafkaEdited by Erich Heller and Jurgen BornTranslated by James Stern and Elisabeth Duckworth “Some of the most heartrending ‘love letters’ ever written.”—Morris Dickstein, The New York Times Book Review“Kafka’s correspondence with Felice has all the earmarks of his fiction—the same nervous attention to minute particulars, the same paranoid awareness of shifting balances of power, the same atmosphere of emotional suffocation—combined, surprisingly enough, with moments of boyish ardor and delight. Taken together, Elias Canetti observes, the letters provide an index of the emotional events that would inspire The Trial—a novel, Canetti argues, in which Kafka’s engagement to Felice is reimagined as the mysterious and menacing arrest of the hero.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times Franz Kafka met Felice Bauer in August 1912, at the home of his friend Max Brod. Energetic, down-to-earth, and life-affirming, the twenty-five-year-old secretary was everything Kafka was not, and he was instantly smitten. Because he was living in Prague and she in Berlin, his courtship was largely an epistolary one—passionate, self-deprecating, and anxious letters sent almost daily, sometimes even two or three times a day. But soon after their engagement was announced in 1914, Kafka began to worry that marriage would interfere with his writing and his need for solitude.The more than five hundred letters Kafka wrote to Felice—through their breakup, a second engagement in 1917, and their final parting in the fall of that year, when Kafka began to feel the effects of the tuberculosis that would eventually claim his life—reveal the full measure of his inner turmoil as he tried, in vain, to balance his desire for human connection with what he felt were the solitary demands of his craft. Paperback624 pagesSchocken, 20166.1 x 1.3 x 9.2 inchesISBN 9780805208511Letters, Correspondence

Letters to Felice

By Franz KafkaTranslated by Philip Boehm “The voice of Kafka in Letters to Milena is more personal, more pure, and more painful than in his fiction: a testimony to human existence and to our eternal wait for the impossible. [This is] a marvelous new edition of a classic text.” —Jan Kott“An extraordinary document—touching, horrifying, brilliant, sickly, heartbreaking, and infinitely convoluted . . . It reveals him most clearly (which is relative, and Kafka remains mystifying enough), and it is—aside from the beauty of the letters themselves—the most significant key we have for a reading of the author’s novels and short stories.” —The New York Times In no other work does Franz Kafka reveal himself as in Letters to Milena, which begins as a business correspondence but soon develops into a passionate but doomed epistolary love affair. Kafka's Czech translator, Milena Jesenská, was a gifted and charismatic twenty-three-year-old who was uniquely able to recognize Kafka's complex genius and his even more complex character. For thirty-six-year-old Kafka, she was "a living fire, such as I have never seen." It was to Milena that he revealed his most intimate self and, eventually, entrusted his diaries for safekeeping.Paperback293 pagesSchocken Books, 2015Originally published in 19525.2 x 0.9 x 8 inchesISBN 9780805212679Letters and Correspondence, Biography

Letters to Milena

By Franz KafkaTranslated, Edited, and with an Introduction by Stanley CorngoldFeaturing essays by Philip Roth, W. H Auden, and Walter Benjamin “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 Hofmann“When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.” With this startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first sentence, Franz Kafka begins his masterpiece, "The Metamorphosis". It is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant beetlelike insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. A harrowing—though absurdly comic—meditation on human feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and isolation, "The Metamorphosis" has taken its place as one of the most widely read and influential works of twentieth-century fiction.This Modern Library edition collects Stanley Corngold’s acclaimed English translation—long hailed as the gold standard by scholars and general readers alike—along with seven critical essays by writers including Philip Roth, W. H. Auden, and Walter Benjamin, background and contextual material, and a new Introduction from Corngold himself.Paperback370 pagesModern Library, 2013Originally published in 19155.2 x 0.8 x 8 inchesISBN 9780812985146Fiction, Fantasy

The Metamorphosis

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

By Franz KafkaTranslated by Stanley Appelbaum Since his death in 1924, Kafka has come to be regarded as one of the greatest modern writers, one whose work brilliantly explores the anxiety, futility, and complexity of modern life. The precision and clarity of Kafka's style, its powerful symbolism, and his existential exploration of the human condition have given his work universal significance. In addition to the title selection, considered by many critics Kafka's most perfect work, this collection includes "The Judgment", "In the Penal Colony", "A Country Doctor", and "A Report to an Academy". Stanley Appelbaum has provided excellent new English translation of the stories and a brief Note placing them within Kafka's oeuvre.A selection of the Common Core State Standards Initiative.Paperback96 pagesDover Publications, 1996Originally published in 19155.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inchesISBN 9780486290300Short Stories, Fiction

The Metamorphosis and Other Stories (Dover Thrift Editions)

By Franz KafkaAdapted by Peter Kuper “Kafka’s stoic Euro-alienation meets and merges with Kuper’s thoroughly American rock and roll alienation.”—Jules Feiffer“The ride from book to comic can be bumpy. Mr. Kuper navigates the transition with precision.”—New York Times“Kafka’s anguished archetypal characters are easily rendered into visual equivalents and given new life in Kuper’s raw, expressionistic graphic style.”—Publishers Weekly Acclaimed graphic artist Peter Kuper presents a brilliant, darkly comic reimagining of Kafka’s classic tale of family, alienation, and a giant bug. Kuper’s electric drawings—which merge American cartooning with German expressionism—bring Kafka’s prose to vivid life, reviving the original story’s humor and poignancy in a way that will surprise and delight readers of Kafka and graphic novels alike. Paperback88 pagesCrown, 2004Originally published in 19156.1 x 0.5 x 9.4 inchesISBN 9781400052998Graphic Novel

The Metamorphosis: Graphic Novel

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

Selected 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 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 KafkaTranslated by David Wyllie From its gripping first sentence onward, this novel exemplifies the term "Kafkaesque." Its darkly humorous narrative recounts a bank clerk's entrapment — based on an undisclosed charge — in a maze of bureaucratic roadblocks. This is the least expensive edition available of one of the 20th century's most important novels. Paperback176 pagesDover Thrift Editions, 2012Originally published in 19255.2 x 0.4 x 8.3 inchesISBN 9780486470610Philosophical Fiction

The Trial (Dover Thrift Editions)

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 19255-1/16 x 7-3/4 inchesISBN 9780241678893Literature

The Trial (Penguin Classics)

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)

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)

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

By Peter-Andre AltTranslated by Kristine A. Thorsen “Peter-André Alt’s Franz Kafka: The Eternal Son is a splendid conspectus of Kafka’s life and work, admirable for its scope and precision. It is the single best study of Kafka if one wishes to read Kafka’s writings as an imbrication of life experience and literary genius. Alt’s study is a rich, redoubtable mine of information and wisdom arising from the most scrupulous scholarly attention to Kafka’s work, body, and milieu.”—Stanley Corngold, author of Franz Kafka: The Ghosts in the Machine "A very welcome translation of excellent scholarship that forces us to question the relationship between an author's life and his work. In this crisp translation of the original, English readers will rediscover the joys of reading Kafka as he has never been presented before."—Richard Block, author of Echoes of a Queer Messianic: From Frankenstein to Brokeback MountainFranz Kafka remains one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. His novels, stories, and letters are still regarded today as the epitome of the dark, fascinating, and uncanny, a model of the modernist aesthetic. Peter-André Alt’s landmark biography, Franz Kafka, the Eternal Son, recounts and explores Kafka’s life and literary work throughout the cultural and political upheavals of central Europe.Alt’s biography explores Franz Kafka’s own view of life and writing as a unity that shaped his identity. He locates links and echoes among the author’s work, life, and surroundings, situating him within the traditions of Prague's German literature, modernity, psychoanalysis, and philosophy as well as within its Jewish culture, arts, theater, and intellectual tradition.In this biographical tour de force, Kafka emerges as an observant flaneur and wistful loner, an anxious ascetic, an ecstatic and skeptic, a specialist in terror, and a master of irony. Alt masterfully illuminates Kafka's life not as source material but as a mirror of his literary genius. Paperback696 pagesNorthwestern University Press, 2018 7 x 2.2 x 10 inchesISBN 9780810126077Biography. Literary Critic

Franz Kafka, the Eternal Son: A Biography

By Benjamin Balint Winner of the 2020 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature"Dramatic and illuminating…[R]aises momentous questions about nationality, religion, literature, and even the Holocaust."―Adam Kirsch, The Atlantic When Franz Kafka died in 1924, his loyal friend Max Brod could not bring himself to fulfill Kafka’s last instruction: to burn his remaining manuscripts. Instead, Brod devoted his life to championing Kafka’s work, rescuing his legacy from both obscurity and physical destruction. Nearly a century later, an international legal battle erupted to determine which country could claim ownership: the Jewish state, where Kafka dreamed of living, or Germany, where Kafka’s three sisters perished in the Holocaust? Benjamin Balint offers a gripping account of the controversial trial in Israeli courts―brimming with dilemmas legal, ethical, and political―that determined the fate of Kafka’s manuscripts. Paperback288 pagesW.W. Norton & Company, 20195.6 x 0.7 x 8.3 inchesISBN 9780393357387Biography

Kafka's Last Trial: The Case of a Literary Legacy [Paperback]

Original Price: $27.50 UP TO 20% ADDITIONAL SAVINGS FOR MEMBERS By Pascale CasanovaTranslated by Chris Turner "From Casanova, we get a methodological model of how to excavate historical subjects’ temporal and social location so that we can understand how they comprehend and react to their condition of domination [. . .] Casanova shows how Kafka’s anger became invisible when the specific world in which he wrote, and upon which he commented, disappeared. Only by recovering the political disputes of his time and place can we make sense of the literary “weapons of the weak” that Kafka developed."—Richard Lachmann, Public SeminarFranz Kafka was one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. His writing contributed greatly to existentialism, and the term “Kafkaesque” is now synonymous with the literature of the surreal, the complex and the illogical. His works sustained themes of violence, family conflict, bizarre and all-powerful bureaucracies, and fantastical transformations. However, in Kafka, Angry Poet, Pascale Casanova looks past the customary analyses of Kafka’s work and dives deep into his mind, examining his motives rather than the results. She bravely asks the question, “What if Kafka were the most radical of social critics? What if he had actually attempted to pull the wool over our eyes with narratives that are, in fact, subtly deceptive?”The hypothesis she develops is that Kafka began with an awareness of the tragic fate of the German-speaking Jews of early twentieth-century Prague and was subsequently led to reflect on other forms of power, such as male dominance and colonial oppression. The stories produced as a result were traps for the unwary, throwing the reader off the scent with the use of unreliable and even deceitful narrators. Curiously, says Casanova, it is not in literature that one finds the answers to these questions but in German ethnology, a field which, as an intellectual of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kafka knew well. Through her detailed research, Casanova shows us a combative Kafka who is at once ethnologist and investigator, unstintingly denouncing all forms of domination with the kind of tireless rage that was his hallmark. In so doing, she sheds light on the deep-seated reasons for Kafka’s anger.Hardcover391 pagesSeagull Books, 20155 x 1.5 x 8 inchesISBN 9780857421623Biography, Literary Criticism

Kafka, Angry Poet

By Costas DespiniadisTranslated by Stelios Kapsomenos "This book is a rare event: a political—in the noblest meaning of the word—interpretation of Kafka’s writings. Even better, it is an anarchist reading, against the grain of the conformist academic prose on the author of The Trial. Despiniadis brings together, with admirable talent, literature, philosophy, and contemporary revolutionary issues."—Michael Löwy, author of Franz Kafka, subversive dreamer, University of Michigan Press, 2016The study of Franz Kafka’s work has seen a steady rise in past decades, with interest broad and growing. With its breadth of sources and bold interpretation, Franz Kafka: The Anatomist of Power is a fascinating new look at one of the greatest authors of the 20th century. Of interest to both academic and public audiences, his work spans multiple disciplines, including literature, gender studies, Jewish studies, modern history, and political theory. Although Kafka has been established for many years as a leading light of Western literature, and interest in his writings continue to grow, no work has yet fully focused on Kafka’s criticism of power institutions in his literary work. The anti-authoritarian dimension of Kafka's work, long silenced in established criticism, is explored for the first time in this book. Supported by a close reading of Kafka's diaries, this book reconstructs Kafka's active participation in Prague’s anarchist circles between 1909-1912, discussing his wide interest in anarchist authors, his skepticism towards the Russian Revolution, and his ambivalent relationship with Utopian Zionism.Paperback148 pagesBlack Rose Books, 20185.5 x 0.7 x 8.5 inchesISBN 9781551646565Literature Criticism

The Anatomist of Power: Franz Kafka and the Critique of Authority

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 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 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

Original Price: $35 UP TO 20% ADDITIONAL SAVINGS FOR MEMBERSBy Reiner Stach The eagerly anticipated final volume of the award-winning, definitive biography of Franz Kafka.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.Hardcover584 pagesPrinceton University Press, 20166.3 x 1.7 x 9.4 inchesISBN 9780691151984 Biography, Czech Writer

Kafka: The Early Years [Hardcover]

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]

Edited by Julian Preece University 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." Choice This 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. Paperback 280 pages Cambridge University Press, 20026 x 0.7 x 9 inches ISBN 9780521663915 Literary Criticism, Essays

The Cambridge Companion to Kafka

By Larissa Theule Illustrated by Rebecca Green "Spun from a true anecdote and likely to move adult readers as well as younger ones, this set of quiet encounters between a writer and a child has as much going on between the spare, poetic lines as in them . . . A tribute to the way words can change lives, as well as a rare glimpse of a writer most of us perhaps only think we know.” —Booklist, starred review“ . . . this charmingly enhanced tale has it all: the kindness of a stranger, the loss of a beloved toy, adventures, and even closure. A winsome tale for the young, this could also be of value in high school collections where Kafka is taught.” —School Library Journal, starred review“This reimagined telling has an engaging charm that rings true.” —Kirkus Reviews Inspired by a true story, Kafka and the Doll recounts a remarkable gesture of kindness from one of the world’s most bewildering and iconic writers. In the fall of 1923, Franz Kafka encountered a distraught little girl on a walk in the park. She’d lost her doll and was inconsolable. Kafka told her the doll wasn’t lost, but instead, traveling the world and having grand adventures! And to reassure her, Kafka began delivering letters from the doll to the girl for weeks.The legend of Kafka and the doll has captivated imaginations for decades as it reveals the playful and compassionate side of a man known for his dark and brooding tales. Kafka and the Doll is a testament to living life to the fullest and to the life-changing power of storytelling.Hardcover48 pages Age range: 4-8Viking Books for Young Readers, 20218.5 x 10.5 inchesISBN 9780593116326Children

Kafka and the Doll

By Joachim Unseld"We have before us a book that is to be recommended to everyone who wants to gain a nuanced picture of Kafka and the literary world he inhabited."—Süddeutsche Zeitung"It is refreshing. . .to have a work which provides us with new insights as well as new facts."—World Literature TodayFranz Kafka's wishes concerning publication of his works during his lifetime as well as the disposition of his literary estate have long been controversial and have given rise to many misunderstandings and misrepresentations—some attaining an almost folkloric status. The prevalent view of an author who desired to have his works destroyed contradicts the reality shown here of the close, symbiotic relationship between Kafka's private life and his literary ambitions. Particular attention is given to Kafka's relationship to and interactions with his publishers, as Unseld discloses the history of the primary correspondence between Kafka and Ernst Rowohlt, Kurt Wolff, and his friend and tireless advocate, Max Brod. Hardcover393 pagesAriadne Press, 19946 x 1.2 x 9 inchesISBN 9780929497785Biography

Kafka: A Writer's Life

By Franz Kafka Translated by Susan Bernofsky Introduction by David Cronenberg “This fine version, with David Cronenberg’s inspired introduction and the new translator’s beguiling afterword, is, I suspect, the most disturbing though the most comforting of all so far; others will follow, but don’t hesitate: this is the transforming text for you.”— Richard Howard Franz Kafka’s 1915 novella of unexplained horror and nightmarish transformation became a worldwide classic and remains a century later one of the most widely read works of fiction in the world. It is the story of traveling salesman Gregor Samsa, who wakes one morning to find himself transformed into a monstrous insect. This hugely influential work inspired George Orwell, Albert Camus, Jorge Louis Borges, and Ray Bradbury, while continuing to unsettle millions of readers. In her new translation of Kafka’s masterpiece, Susan Bernofsky strives to capture both the humor and the humanity in this macabre tale, underscoring the ways in which Gregor Samsa’s grotesque metamorphosis is just the physical manifestation of his longstanding spiritual impoverishment. Paperback128 pagesW.W. Norton, 2014Originally published in 19155.5 x 8.3 inchesISBN 9780393347098

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

Shop at Neue Franz Kafka