'The supreme fabulist of modern man's cosmic predicament' John Updike 'The stories are dreamlike, allegorical, ghoulishly detached, exquisitely comic, numinous, and prophetic' New York Times The essential stories of one of the twentieth century's greatest and most influential writers No 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. Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe Translated by Alexander Starritt Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was born to Jewish parents in Prague and wrote in German. He published only a few story collections and individual stories in literary magazines during his lifetime. The rest of his work was published posthumously. He is now considered one of the most influential authors of the twentieth century.

Chess world champion Mirko Czentovic is travelling on an ocean liner to Buenos Aires. Dull-witted in all but chess, he entertains himself on board by allowing others to challenge him in the game, before beating each of them and taking their money. But there is another passenger with a passion for chess: Dr B, previously driven to insanity during Nazi imprisonment by the chess games in his imagination. But in agreeing to take on Czentovic, what price will Dr B ultimately pay? A moving portrait of one man's madness, The Royal Game: a chess story is a searing examination of the power of the mind and the evil it can do.

Winner of the Newbery Honor: the delightful tale of a wandering good samaritan dog, by the author of Shrek! Dominic has decided it is time for a change. So he packs up his hats and his piccolo, and sets off into the unknown. But no sooner does he feel the air on his snout and the grass beneath his paws, than disaster strikes: he encounters the dreaded Doomsday Gang. But Dominic is not one to complain - and nor is he one to lose a fight. As legend of his victory over the villains spreads, more and more creatures turn to him for help: a 158-year-old turtle, a heartbroken wild boar, and a family of grateful geese all encounter Dominic's heroism and generosity. But his trials are far from over: the Doomsday Gang is alive and kicking, and how can one young dog face a mob of hooligans alone? "Steig's books are like perfect smooth stones, complete in themselves, with no seams to be found... he always has the skill to bring together what seems to be a lot of spur-of-the-moment choices and make them into stories that land so perfectly and satisfyingly and feel so inevitable in their endings" - Jon Klassen, author of This Is Not My Hat

Winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Shortlisted for the Prix Femina 2022 Shortlisted for the Prix Medicis 2022 'An impressively realistic novel of German soldiers on the Eastern Front' Antony Beevor 'Starritt's daring work challenges us to lay bare our histories, to seek answers from the past, and to be open to perspectives starkly different from our own' New York Times When a young British man asks his German grandfather what it was like to fight on the wrong side of the war, the question is initially met with irritation and silence. But after the old man's death, a long letter to his grandson is found among his things. That letter is this book. In it, he relates the experiences of an unlikely few days on the Eastern Front - at a moment when he knows not only that Germany is going to lose the war, but that it deserves to. He writes about his everyday experience amid horror, confusion and great bravery, and he asks himself what responsibility he bears for the circumstances he found himself in. As he tries to find an answer he can live with, we hear from his grandson what kind of man he became in the seventy years after the war. We Germans is a fundamentally human novel that grapples with the most profound of questions about guilt, shame and responsibility - questions that remain as live today as they have always been.

This book is a standard work for modern narrative theory. It provides a terminological and theoretical system of reference for future research. The author explains and discusses in detail problems of communication structure and entities of a narrative work, point of view, the relationship between narratora (TM)s text and charactera (TM)s text, narrativity and eventfulness, and narrative transformations of happenings. The book outlines a theory of narration and analyses central narratological categories such as fiction, mimesis, author, reader, narrator etc. A detailed bibliography and glossary of narratological terms make this book a compendium of narrative theory which is of relevance for scholars and students of all literary disciplines.