In America Karl Rossmann is 'packed off to American by his parents' to experience Oedipal and cultural isolation. Here, ordinary immigrants are also strange, and 'America' is never quite as real as it should be. Kafka, a Czech writing in German, never acutally visited America; so, as Max Brod commented, 'the innocence of his fantasy gives this book if advanture its peculiar colour.' Both Joseph K in The Trial and K in The Castle are victims of anonymous governing forces beyond their control. Both are atomised, estranged and rootless citizens decieved by authoritarian power. Whereas Joseph K is relentlessly hunted down for a crime that remains nameless, K ceaselessly attempts to enter the castle and so belong somewhere. Together these novels may be read as powerful allegories of totalitarian government in whatever guise it appears today.

The Burrow" (German: "Der Bau") is an unfinished short story by Franz Kafka in which a mole-like being burrows through an elaborate system of tunnels it has built over the course of its life. The story was published posthumously in Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer (Berlin, 1931). The first English translation appeared in The Great Wall of China. Stories and Reflections (New York: Schocken Books, 1946. Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir).

Drawing directly on original manuscripts, this collection comprises the major short stories published after Kafka’s death. It includes
and his great sequences of
, with fables and parables on subjects ranging from the legend of Prometheus to the Tower of Babel.
Allegorical, disturbing and possessing a dream-like clarity, these writings are quintessential Kafka.

The Complete Stories is a compilation of all of Kafka's short stories. With the exception of three novels (The Trial, The Castle and Amerika), this collection includes all of his narrative work. The book was originally edited by Nahum N. Glatzer and published by Schocken Books in 1971. It was reprinted in 1995 with an introduction by John Updike. The collection includes all the works published during Kafka's lifetime, with the exception of The Stoker which is usually incorporated as the first chapter of his unfinished novel Amerika. Some of the stories included in the book are fragmented or in various states of incompletion. Most of the stories are translated by Willa and Edwin Muir, with occasional translations by Tania and James Stern. Several fables, parables and philosophical pieces are not included in this collection, as they were never meant to be independent stories or never intended for publication. These can be found in Kafka's diaries, notebooks and letters.

Written in 1914,
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.

A 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 Kafka

This 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.

This volume contains all of Kafka's shorter fiction, from fragments, parables and sketches to longer tales. Together they reveal the breadth of Kafka's literary vision and the extraordinary imaginative depth of his thought. Some are well-known, others are mere jottings, observations of daily life, given artistic form through Kafka's unique perception of the world. (20050121)

A Country Doctor is the third such volume of Kafka's stories published by Prague's Twisted Spoon Press, following A HUNGER ARTIST and CONTEMPLATION. It includes 15 stories and sketches, included the famed parable "Before the Law, " "Jackals and Arabs, " "A Fratricide" and "A Report from an Academy" among them. ImPorted from the Czech Republic.

Diese Ausgabe der »Suhrkamp BasisBibliothek - Arbeitstexte für Schule und Studium« bietet nicht nur Franz Kafkas Roman Der Prozeß, sondern auch die unvollendeten Kapitel, die vom Autor gestrichenen Stellen sowie die Nachworte des Herausgebers Max Brod. Ergänzt wird diese Edition durch einen Kommentar, der alle für das Verständnis des Buches erforderlichen Informationen enthält: die Entstehungs- und Textgeschichte, einen Forschungsüberblick, Literaturhinweise sowie ausführliche Wort- und Sacherläuterungen. Der Kommentar ist entsprechend den neuen Rechtschreibregeln verfasst.

Die Erzählungen sind das eigentliche Herzstück von Kafkas Werk. Diese Ausgabe der »Suhrkamp BasisBibliothek - Arbeitstexte für Schule und Studium« bietet nicht nur eine repräsentative Auswahl aus der gesamten Schaffensperiode des Autors in authentischer Textfassung, sondern auch einen Kommentar, der alle für das Verständnis des Buches erforderlichen Informationen enthält: eine Zeittafel zu Leben und Werk, Hinweise zur Entstehungs- und Rezeptionsgeschichte, einen Forschungsüberblick, Literaturhinweise sowie detaillierte Wort- und Sacherläuterungen. Der Kommentar ist entsprechend den neuen Rechtschreibregeln verfasst.

'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 traveller 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. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

“La metamorfosi” è il racconto più conosciuto di Franz Kafka. Il protagonista, Gregor Samsa, un giorno si sveglia per trovarsi trasformato in un gigantesco e incredibilmente disgustoso insetto. La metamorfosi di Gregor in un insetto rivoltante è l’espressione dei sentimenti di isolamento e inferiorità di Kafka. In questo racconto infatti è condensato il personale senso di alienazione di Kafka, il quale non solo era un uomo di origine tedesca nella ceca Praga e un ebreo in un periodo storico profondamente antisemita, ma sentiva anche il peso di dover diventare un uomo d’affari di successo come il padre.Un classico da ascoltare e riascoltare per conoscere o riscoprire uno dei più celebri personaggi della letteratura.