Books with author Franz KAFKA

Featuring an appendix of discussion questions, the Diversion Classics edition is ideal for use in book groups and classrooms.From its iconic opening scene, in which Gregor Samsa awakens to find himself transformed into an insect, to its heartbreaking conclusion, Kafka's novella remains a seminal work of magical realism. As Gregor navigates his new world, he begins to question the very meaning of his existence. One of the world's most widely read pieces of literature, THE METAMORPHOSIS is a tale of identity that continues to resonate with modern readers.

Featuring an appendix of discussion questions, the Diversion Classics edition is ideal for use in book groups and classrooms.From its iconic opening scene, in which Gregor Samsa awakens to find himself transformed into an insect, to its heartbreaking conclusion, Kafka's novella remains a seminal work of magical realism. As Gregor navigates his new world, he begins to question the very meaning of his existence. One of the world's most widely read pieces of literature, THE METAMORPHOSIS is a tale of identity that continues to resonate with modern readers.

Written in 1914, The Trial is one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. 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.About the Author:Franz Kafka was a German-language writer of novels and short stories, regarded by critics as one of the most influential authors of the 20th century. Kafka strongly influenced genres such as existentialism. Most of his works, such as ‘Die Verwandlung’, Der Prozess, and Das Schloss, are filled with the themes and archetypes of alienation, physical and psychological brutality, parent–child conflict, characters on a terrifying quest, labyrinths of bureaucracy, and mystical transformations.Kafka was born into a middle-class, German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In his lifetime, most of the population of Prague spoke Czech, and the division between Czech- and German-speaking people was a tangible reality, as both groups were strengthening their national identity. The Jewish community often found itself in between the two sentiments, naturally raising questions about a place to which one belongs. Kafka himself was fluent in both languages, considering German his mother tongue.Kafka trained as a lawyer and, after completing his legal education, obtained employment with an insurance company. He began to write short stories in his spare time.

Unabridged English value reproduction of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. This wonderfully weird classic of an average family with an unacceptable member is studied in universities across the globe. The Metamorphosis is multilayered and resonates in people in different ways, opening doors of thoughts that were often never even seen before. This beautifully tragic science fiction tale is provided to the reader in a slim volume with the full text at an affordable price.

The classic, darkly comic novel with “striking parallels to Orwell’s 1984” by the author of The Metamorphosis (The Guardian). Written during the first months of World War I, but still unpublished at the time of author Franz Kafka’s death, The Trial follows the tribulations of a bank clerk named Josef K. When Josef is arrested by two unidentified agents for an unidentified crime, he maintains his innocence while being dragged under the slow wheels of bureaucracy . . . “Kafka’s writing accurately captures the feel of a worker trapped in bureaucratic servitude. In the mind of a bureaucrat, appearances are more important than explanations. Accusations that threaten to ruin lives are looked at frivolously by everyone except the accused. The horror of K’s story in The Trial is he can never quite come to understand what he has done wrong and why it is everyone assumes he will eventually be found guilty.” —Medium “The Trial is deeply thought-provoking in its uncomfortable presentation of a world where people are observed by secret police and suddenly arrested, reflecting the social turmoil in Europe around the time Kafka wrote it in 1914. . . . As such, fans of fiction which presents a disturbingly realistic alternative world ruled by oppression would enjoy The Trial.” —The Guardian

Reprint 1915 eidtion. Paperback. Translated by Ian Johnston The Original German edition Die Verwandlung published by K. Wolff, Leipzig, 1915.The Metamorphosis (German: Die Verwandlung) is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It is often cited as one of the seminal works of short fiction of the 20th century and is widely studied in colleges and universities across the western world. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed into an insect.Critics have interpreted Kafka's works in the context of a variety of literary schools, such as modernism, magical realism, and so on. The apparent hopelessness and absurdity that seem to permeate his works are considered emblematic of existentialism. Others have tried to locate a Marxist influence in his satirization of bureaucracy in pieces such as In the Penal Colony, The Trial, and The Castle, whereas others point to anarchism as an inspiration for Kafka's anti-bureaucratic viewpoint. Still others have interpreted his works through the lens of Judaism, through Freudianism, or as allegories of a metaphysical quest for God. Themes of alienation and persecution are repeatedly emphasized. Biographers have said that it was common for Kafka to read chapters of the books he was working on to his closest friends, and that those readings usually concentrated on the humorous side of his prose. Milan Kundera refers to the essentially surrealist humour of Kafka as a main predecessor of later artists such as Federico Fellini, Gabriel García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes and Salman Rushdie. For García Márquez, it was as he said the reading of Kafka's The Metamorphosis that showed him "that it was possible to write in a different way."

Written in 1914 but not published until 1925, a year after Kafka’s death, The Trial is 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, The Trial has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers.

No wonder Elias Canetti described it as "one of the few great and perfect works of the poetic imagination written". The Metamorphosis remains one of the best works of fiction in history.It is the story of a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, who wakes up to find himself being transformed to an insect-like creature and the story unfolds into one of the greatest short fiction stories ever written.

As Gregor Samoa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was laying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his homelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes."

“The hero of the story is called Samsa which sounds like a cryptogram for Kafka. Five letters in each word. The S in the word Samsa has the same position as the K in the word Kafka. The A ... " "It is not a cryptogram" Franz interrupted, "Samsa is not merely Kafka, and nothing else. Metamorphosis is not a confession, it is an indiscretion." "How is that?" "It is kind of delicate, and indiscreet, when one tries to talk about the bedbugs in one's own family." Gustav Janouch and Franz Kafka - A conversation in Prague It is unusual to say the least to open a novel and the first line is about the main character waking up as a large insect. Most authors use symbolism to relate the theme of their work, not Franz Kafka. In Metamorphosis (Die Verwandlung), Kafka uses a literary device that focuses the readers’ attention on a single character that symbolizes himself and his life. The simple, but metaphorically multilayered, story depicts multiple similarities between Kafka’s real life and Gregor Samsa, the leading charachter. Metamorphosis is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant 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 inadequecy, guilt, and isolation. Metamorphosis is one of the most widely read and influential works of twentieth-century fiction. At the time Kafka wrote Metamorphosis, his own life situation resembled to an astonishing degree Gregor Samsa's just before his metamorphosis. This is revealed by several of his diary entries and especially by a letter Kafka wrote to Max Brod in October 1912, which caused Brod to intervene with Kafka's mother. Besides his work in the insurance office, which was hateful enough, Kafka also had to take on additional duties in the factory belonging to his father and brother-in-law and all his free writing time was gone, just at a time when "The Trial" had made a breakthrough into his mature literary style and needed all his attention.