Like George Orwell, Franz Kafka has given his name to a world of nightmare, but in Kafka's world, it is never completely clear just what the nightmare is. The Trial, where the rules are hidden from even the highest officials, and if there is any help to be had, it will come from unexpected sources, is a chilling, blackly amusing tale that maintains, to the very end, a relentless atmosphere of disorientation. Superficially about bureaucracy, it is in the last resort a description of the absurdity of 'normal' human nature. Still more enigmatic is The Castle. Is it an allegory of a quasi-feudal system giving way to a new freedom for the subject? The search by a central European Jew for acceptance into a dominant culture? A spiritual quest for grace or salvation? An individual's struggle between his sense of independence and his need for approval? Is it all of these things? And K? Is he opportunist, victim, or an outsider battling against elusive authority? Finally, in his fables, Kafka deals in dark and quirkily humorous terms with the insoluble dilemmas of a world which offers no reassurance, and no reliable guidance to resolving our existential and emotional uncertainties and anxieties.

On his thirtieth birthday, Josef K. is arrested by two unidentified agents for an unspecified crime. In The Trial, Kafka brings us a nightmarish vision of the irrationality and blindness of modern bureaucracy in twentieth-century totalitarian regimes as the narrative is driven by a terrifying inevitability, driving the protagist towards a meaningless and helpless demise. The Trial is an existential masterpiece that resonates strongly with modern audiences.

«Grundlos wird Josef K. an seinem 30. Geburtstag verhaftet und verhort. Die Umstande sind grotesk, niemand kennt das Gesetz und das Gericht bleibt anonym. Die «Schuld», erfahrt Josef K., hafte ihm an, ohne dass er dagegen etwas tun konne. Verbissen, aber erfolglos versucht er, sich gegen die zunehmende Absurditat und Verstrickung zu wehren. Franz Kafka hat mit diesem Roman ein Jahrhundertwerk geschaffen, das auf beispielhafte Weise die wesentlichen Existenzfragen des modernen Menschen neu formuliert.»

Da sucht jemand den Bahnhof, aber der Schutzmann rät ihm, es aufzugeben. Ein anderer kommt nach Hause und trifft dort zwei auf und ab springende Bälle vor, die ihm bei jeder Bewegung folgen. Ein dritter wird verhaftet, weil seine Schwester an ein Hoftor geklopft hat. Es geht seltsam zu in der Welt von Kafkas Erzählungen. Der Leser weiß nicht, was er davon halten soll. Soll er lachen oder verzweifeln oder beides?

This selection of Kafka's shorter prose writings includes one of the few works published during his lifetime: the harrowing story of Gregor Samsa's overnight transformation into a verminous insect, his record of the effect of this sudden metamorphosis on himself and the reaction of his family. It conveys with an unsettling mixture of subjective involvement and objective detachment the complex feelings of guilt, affection, responsibility and self-doubt that characterise Kafka's perception of intimate emotional relationships — themes that are continued in the quasi-fictional story The Judgement and the quasi-autobiographical Letter to his Father. Issues of guilt, punishment and penance are also treated with startling brutality in the story set in a tropical penal colony that describes in horrific detail a machine designed to inflict an ingenious and barbaric form of execution on victims of a summary and arbitrary justice — a machine, however, that in this instance destroys not its intended victim, but its zealous operator and, simultaneously, itself. Kafka's enigmatic fables deal, often in dark and quirkily humorous terms, with the insoluble dilemmas of a world in which there appears to be no reassurance, no reliable guidance to resolving our existential and emotional uncertainties and anxieties.

This selection of Kafka's shorter prose writings includes one of the few works published during his lifetime: the harrowing story of Gregor Samsa's overnight transformation into a verminous insect, his record of the effect of this sudden metamorphosis on himself and the reaction of his family. It conveys with an unsettling mixture of subjective involvement and objective detachment the complex feelings of guilt, affection, responsibility and self-doubt that characterise Kafka's perception of intimate emotional relationships — themes that are continued in the quasi-fictional story The Judgement and the quasi-autobiographical Letter to his Father. Issues of guilt, punishment and penance are also treated with startling brutality in the story set in a tropical penal colony that describes in horrific detail a machine designed to inflict an ingenious and barbaric form of execution on victims of a summary and arbitrary justice — a machine, however, that in this instance destroys not its intended victim, but its zealous operator and, simultaneously, itself. Kafka's enigmatic fables deal, often in dark and quirkily humorous terms, with the insoluble dilemmas of a world in which there appears to be no reassurance, no reliable guidance to resolving our existential and emotional uncertainties and anxieties.

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 experiences 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.

«Franz Kafkas sogenannter «Brief an den Vater» ist das ausführlichste und bedeutendste autobiografische Zeugnis, das der weltberühmte Prager Dichter der Nachwelt hinterlassen hat. Er selbst nannte die mehr als hundert handbeschriebenen Seite nur den «Riesenbrief». Kafka war bereits 36 Jahre alt und auf dem Höhepunkt seines literarischen Schaffens, als er Ende 1919 daran arbeitete – in dem verzweifelten Versuch, einer von Schmerz, Furcht und Distanz geprägten Vater-Sohn-Beziehung ein Gerüst aus nüchternen Worten zu bauen. Der Versuch scheiterte: Franz Kafka starb knapp fünf Jahre später, ohne dass er den Brief abgeschickt oder seinem Vater übergeben hatte.»

«Über Kafkas großen Amerika-Roman, den der Prager Dichter selbst in seinen Tagebüchern «Der Verschollene» nannte, schrieb Kurt Tucholsky bewundernd: Hier ist der ganz seltene Fall, dass einer das Leben nicht versteht und recht hat. Hauptperson ist der junge Karl Roßmann, der, von seiner Familie verstoßen, in die Neue Welt aufbricht, um die Freiheit zu suchen, nach der er sich sehnt. Diese Ausgabe präsentiert die erste Fassung, die Kafkas Freund und Nachlassverwalter Max Brod postum 1927 herausgab.»

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.

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.

«Das große Meisterwerk der Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts Ein Buch müsse die Axt sein «für das gefrorene Meer in uns», forderte Franz Kafka einmal – nur wenige Werke der Weltliteratur kommen diesem Motto so nahe wie der letzte der drei großen Romane des Prager Dichters: Eines Nachts gelangt der Landvermesser K. in ein Dorf, dessen Geschicke von einer geheimnisvollen Macht, dem Schloss, gelenkt werden. Er ersucht dort um eine Anstellung, die ihm jedoch verwehrt wird. Der Grund für diese Ablehnung bleibt ebenso im Dunkeln wie die Natur des ominösen Schlosses und K. beginnt einen aussichtslos scheinenden Kampf um seine Anerkennung.»

Ein Kanon der deutschsprachigen Literatur ist ohne die Dichtungen Franz Kafkas (1883–1924) nicht denkbar. Legendär ist die nüchtern wirkende und doch so überreiche Klarheit seiner Sprache, die eigenartige und bisweilen beunruhigende Entrücktheit seiner Erzählungen. In der Titelgeschichte dieses Bandes, die Kafka in einer Septembernacht des Jahres 1912 niederschrieb und die er für seine gelungenste hielt, vollstreckt der Sohn das Urteil seines Vaters an sich selbst – er ertränkt sich. Die Vielzahl der Deutungen, die diese und andere Erzählungen des Prager Dichters hervorgerufen haben, bezeugt die Wirkkraft aller großen Literatur: Sie bereichert ihre Leser. Enthaltene Erzählungen: Das Urteil, Die Verwandlung, Ein Landarzt, Auf der Galerie, Vor dem Gesetz, Elf Söhne, Ein Bericht für eine Akademie, In der Strafkolonie, Ein Hungerkünstler.

For lovers of timeless classics, this series of beautifully packaged and affordably priced editions of world literature encompasses a variety of literary genres, including theater, novels, poems, and essays. Los lectores tomaran un gran placer en descubrir los clasicos con estas bellas y economicas ediciones de las grandes obras literarias. Esta seleccion editorial cuenta con titulos que abarcan todos los generos literarios, desde teatro, narrativa, poesia y el ensayo.

«Die beruhmteste Erzahlung Franz. Kafkas berichtet von Gregor Samsa, der eines Morgens nicht mehr als Mensch, sondern als haBliches «Ungeziefer» erwacht. Kafkas «Verwandlung» ist die groteske Parabel einer stillen Revoke gegen die Unmenschlichkeit. In Tiergestalt halt Gregor Samsa der Welt den Spiegel vor. Ein schweigender Protestschrei, der am Ende ohnmachtig bleibt, aber bis heute eines der aufregendsten Werke der Weltliteralur.»

Metamorphosis is Kafka's most famous story. In it he explores the notions of alienation and human loneliness by means of his extraordinary narrative techniques and depth of imagination. Gregor Samsa awakens one morning to find himself transformed into a repulsive bug. Trapped inside this hideous form, his mind remains unchanged — until he sees the shocked reaction of those around him and begins to question the basis of human love and, indeed, the entire purpose of his existence. But this, it seems, is only the beginning of his ordeal. Contains also six lesser-known stories by Kafka.