Other editions of book The Trial

The story of the mysterious indictment, trial, and reckoning forced upon Joseph K. in Franz Kafka’s The Trial is one of the twentieth century’s master parables, reflecting the central spiritual crises of modern life. Kafka’s method–one that has influenced, in some way, almost every writer of substance who followed him–was to render the absurd and the terrifying convincing by a scrupulous, hyperreal matter-of-factness of tone and treatment. He thereby imparted to his work a level of seriousness normally associated with civilization’s most cherished poems and religious texts. Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir

The Trial is a novel written by Franz Kafka from 1914 to 1915 and published in 1925. One of his best-known works, it tells the story of a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed neither to him nor to the reader. Heavily influenced by Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, Kafka even went so far as to call Dostoyevsky a blood relative. Like Kafka's other novels, The Trial was never completed, although it does include a chapter which brings the story to an end.

'No other voice has borne truer witness to the dark of our times... The Trial exhibits the classic model of the terror state. It prefigures the furtive sadism, the hysteria which totalitarianism insinuates into private and sexual life, the faceless boredom of the killers. The labyrinth of his meanings opens out, at its secret, difficult exists, to the high roads of modern sensibility, to what is most urgent and relevant in our condition.' George Steiner

'No other voice has borne truer witness to the dark of our times... The Trial exhibits the classic model of the terror state. It prefigures the furtive sadism, the hysteria which totalitarianism insinuates into private and sexual life, the faceless boredom of the killers. The labyrinth of his meanings opens out, at its secret, difficult exists, to the high roads of modern sensibility, to what is most urgent and relevant in our condition.' George Steiner

'No other voice has borne truer witness to the dark of our times... The Trial exhibits the classic model of the terror state. It prefigures the furtive sadism, the hysteria which totalitarianism insinuates into private and sexual life, the faceless boredom of the killers. The labyrinth of his meanings opens out, at its secret, difficult exists, to the high roads of modern sensibility, to what is most urgent and relevant in our condition.' George Steiner

'No other voice has borne truer witness to the dark of our times... The Trial exhibits the classic model of the terror state. It prefigures the furtive sadism, the hysteria which totalitarianism insinuates into private and sexual life, the faceless boredom of the killers. The labyrinth of his meanings opens out, at its secret, difficult exists, to the high roads of modern sensibility, to what is most urgent and relevant in our condition.' George Steiner

Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K.; he knew he had done nothing wrong but; one morning; he was arrested. Every day at eight in the morning he was brought his breakfast by Mrs. Grubach's cook - Mrs. Grubach was his landlady - but today she didn't come. That had never happened before. K. waited a little while; looked from his pillow at the old woman who lived opposite and who was watching him with an inquisitiveness quite unusual for her; and finally; both hungry and disconcerted; rang the bell. There was immediately a knock at the door and a man entered. He had never seen the man in this house before. He was slim but firmly built; his clothes were black and close-fitting; with many folds and pockets; buckles and buttons and a belt; all of which gave the impression of being very practical but without making it very clear what they were actually for. "Who are you?" asked K.; sitting half upright in his bed.

'No other voice has borne truer witness to the dark of our times... The Trial exhibits the classic model of the terror state. It prefigures the furtive sadism, the hysteria which totalitarianism insinuates into private and sexual life, the faceless boredom of the killers. The labyrinth of his meanings opens out, at its secret, difficult exists, to the high roads of modern sensibility, to what is most urgent and relevant in our condition.' George Steiner

'No other voice has borne truer witness to the dark of our times... The Trial exhibits the classic model of the terror state. It prefigures the furtive sadism, the hysteria which totalitarianism insinuates into private and sexual life, the faceless boredom of the killers. The labyrinth of his meanings opens out, at its secret, difficult exists, to the high roads of modern sensibility, to what is most urgent and relevant in our condition.' George Steiner

'No other voice has borne truer witness to the dark of our times... The Trial exhibits the classic model of the terror state. It prefigures the furtive sadism, the hysteria which totalitarianism insinuates into private and sexual life, the faceless boredom of the killers. The labyrinth of his meanings opens out, at its secret, difficult exists, to the high roads of modern sensibility, to what is most urgent and relevant in our condition.' George Steiner

'No other voice has borne truer witness to the dark of our times... The Trial exhibits the classic model of the terror state. It prefigures the furtive sadism, the hysteria which totalitarianism insinuates into private and sexual life, the faceless boredom of the killers. The labyrinth of his meanings opens out, at its secret, difficult exists, to the high roads of modern sensibility, to what is most urgent and relevant in our condition.' George Steiner