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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.
Only yesterday, Gregor Samsa was a meek salesman, browbeaten by his
unappreciative employer and depended on fiercely by his ungrateful
family. This morning, Gregor awakens to discover that, overnight,
he has been transformed into a monstrous insect. As Gregor
frantically tries to conceal his predicament, neither his family
nor his unsympathetic employer accept that a terrible metamorphosis
has upended his existence. Is Gregor’s condition only temporary?
Will he eventually revert back to the person he was and resume his
normal life? Or might he have to accept that his transformation is
only an outward expression of how he—and those in his
life—actually see him? First published in 1915, Kafka’s
best-known tale has inspired numerous interpretations for more than
a century and helped to establish the term “Kafkaesque” as a
reference to a bizarre and nightmarish experience. This collection
of his short fiction, in a new translation, includes more than 30
of his short stories and sketches, including “In the Penal
Colony,” “The Stoker,” “The Judgment,” “A Country
Doctor,” “A Hunger Artist,” and more.
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Metamorphosis
Franz Kafka; Translated by Will Aaltonen Pearson; Introduction by Will Aaltonen Pearson
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R238
R217
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The story itself, Kafka's most famous, hardly needs describing -
a travelling salesman, Gregor Samsa, wakes up one morning to find
he has been transformed into an enormous bug - but Faber Finds is
offering something rare, the very first English translation which
has been out of print for over sixty years.
This pioneering translation by A. L. Lloyd was first published
in 1937. A. L. Lloyd was multi-talented: ethnomusicologist,
journalist, radio and television broadcaster, and translator. In
this his centenary year (2008) Faber Finds is celebrating him in
his first and last roles. His major work, Folk Song in England, is
being reissued as are his Lorca and Kafka translations. As well as
both being published in 1937 both were firsts; has anyone else had
Spanish and German translations published in the same year?
It should also be mentioned that A. L. Lloyd was a lifelong
communist. It is a delicious irony therefore that one of the first
reviews of the Kafka was by Evelyn Waugh in the short-lived "Night"
"and Day"; it was a good one too.
Kafka first made the acquaintance of Milena Jesenska in 1920 when
she was translating his early short prose into Czech, and their
relationship quickly developed into a deep attachment. Such was his
feeling for her that Kafka showed her his diaries and, in doing so,
laid bare his heart and his conscience. Milena, for her part, was
passionate and intrepid, cool and intelligent in her decisions but
reckless when her emotions were involved. Kafka once described her
as living her life 'so intensely down to such depths'. If she did
suffer through him, it was part of her great appetite for life.
However while at times Milena's 'genius for living' gave Kafka new
life, it ultimately exhausted him, and their relationship was to
last little over two years. In 1924 Kafka died in a sanatorium near
Vienna, and Milena died in 1944 at the hands of the Nazis, leaving
these letters as a moving record of their relationship.
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Metamorphosis (Hardcover)
Franz Kafka, Michael Hoffman
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R270
R211
Discovery Miles 2 110
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Introducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions
of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest
writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith.
Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take
us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England
to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on
the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and
printed, these collectible editions are bound in colourful, tactile
cloth and stamped with foil. One morning, ordinary salesman Gregor
Samsa wakes up to find himself transformed into a giant cockroach.
Metamorphosis, Kafka's masterpiece of unease and black humour, is
one of the twentieth century's most influential works of fiction,
and is accompanied here by two more classic stories. 'He is the
greatest German writer of our time. Such poets as Rilke or such
novelists as Thomas Mann are dwarfs or plaster saints in comparison
to him' - Vladimir Nabokov
Franz Kafka's letters to his one-time muse, Milena Jesenska - an
intimate window into the desires and hopes of the
twentieth-century's most prophetic and important writer Kafka first
made the acquaintance of Milena Jesenska in 1920 when she was
translating his early short prose into Czech, and their
relationship quickly developed into a deep attachment. Such was his
feeling for her that Kafka showed her his diaries and, in doing so,
laid bare his heart and his conscience. While at times Milena's
'genius for living' gave Kafka new life, it ultimately exhausted
him, and their relationship was to last little over two years. In
1924 Kafka died in a sanatorium near Vienna, and Milena died in
1944 at the hands of the Nazis, leaving these letters as a moving
record of their relationship.
Superb collection by modern master explores the complexity, anxiety and futility of modern life. Excellent new English translations of the title story (considered by many critics Kafka's most perfect work), plus "The Judgment," "In the Penal Colony," "A Country Doctor" and "A Report to an Academy." Note.
The Trial has been adapted for theatre, radio and cinema, including
a major stage adaptation at the Young Vic in London 2015.
This collection of new translations brings together the small
proportion of Kafka's works that he himself thought worthy of
publication. It includes Metamorphosis, his most famous work, an
exploration of horrific transformation and alienation; Meditation,
a collection of his earlier studies; The Judgement, written in a
single night of frenzied creativity; The Stoker, the first chapter
of a novel set in America and a fascinating occasional piece, and
The Aeroplanes at Brescia, Kafka's eyewitness account of an air
display in 1909. Together, these stories reveal the breadth of
Kafka's literary vision and the extraordinary imaginative depth of
his thought.
'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.
Franz Kafka s 1915 novella of unexplained horror and nightmarish
transformation became a worldwide classic and remains a century
later one of the most widely read works of fiction in the world. It
is the story of traveling salesman Gregor Samsa, who wakes one
morning to find himself transformed into a monstrous insect. This
hugely influential work inspired George Orwell, Albert Camus, Jorge
Louis Borges, and Ray Bradbury, while continuing to unsettle
millions of readers. In her new translation of Kafka s masterpiece,
Susan Bernofsky strives to capture both the humor and the humanity
in this macabre tale, underscoring the ways in which Gregor Samsa s
grotesque metamorphosis is just the physical manifestation of his
longstanding spiritual impoverishment."
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The Lost Writings (Hardcover)
Franz Kafka; Edited by 'Reiner Stach; Translated by Michael Hofmann
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R491
R403
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Selected by the preeminent Kafka biographer and scholar Reiner
Stach and newly translated by the peerless Michael Hofmann, the
seventy-four pieces gathered here have been lost to sight for
decades and two of them have never been translated into English
before. Some stories are several pages long; some run about a page;
a handful are only a few lines long: all are marvels. Even the most
fragmentary texts are revelations. These pieces were drawn from two
large volumes of the S. Fischer Verlag edition Nachgelassene
Schriften und Fragmente (totaling some 1100 pages). "Franz Kafka is
the master of the literary fragment," as Stach comments in his
afterword: "In no other European author does the proportion of
completed and published works loom quite so...small in the overall
mass of his papers, which consist largely of broken-off
beginnings." In fact, as Hofmann recently added: "'Finished' seems
to me, in the context of Kafka, a dubious or ironic condition,
anyway. The more finished, the less finished. The less finished,
the more finished. Gregor Samsa's sister Grete getting up to
stretch in the streetcar. What kind of an ending is that?! There's
perhaps some distinction to be made between 'finished' and 'ended.'
Everything continues to vibrate or unsettle, anyway. Reiner Stach
points out that none of the three novels were 'completed.' Some
pieces break off, or are concluded, or stop-it doesn't
matter!-after two hundred pages, some after two lines. The gusto,
the friendliness, the wit with which Kafka launches himself into
these things is astonishing."
A collection of Kafka's greatest short fiction, translated by
Michael Hofmann Kafka's masterpiece of unease and black humour,
Metamorphosis, the story of an ordinary man transformed into an
insect, is brought together in this collection with the rest of his
works that he thought worthy of publication. It includes
Contemplation, a collection of his earlier short studies; The
Judgement, written in a single night of frenzied creativity; The
Stoker, the first chapter of a novel set in America; and an
eyewitness account of an air display. Together, these stories,
fragments and miniature gems reveal the breadth of his vision, his
sense of the absurd, and above all his acute, uncanny wit.
Translated with an introduction by Michael Hofmann
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Metamorphosis
Franz Kafka; Translated by Will Aaltonen Pearson; Introduction by Will Aaltonen Pearson
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R349
R282
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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'If I think about it, and I have the time and inclination and
capacity to do so, we dogs are an odd lot.' How does a dog see the
world? How do any of us? In this playful and enigmatic story of a
canine philosopher, Kafka explores the limits of knowledge. Penguin
Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the
iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a
concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here
are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman
Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson;
essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories
surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern
Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of
outer space.
Long fascinated with the work of Franz Kafka, Peter Kuper began
illustrating his stories in 1988. Initially drawn to the master's
dark humour, Kuper adapted the stories over the years to plumb
their deeper truths. Working from new translations of the classic
texts, Kuper has reimagined these iconic stories for the
twenty-first century, using setting and perspective to comment on
contemporary issues. Long-time lovers of Kafka will appreciate
Kuper's innovative interpretations, while Kafka novices will
discover a haunting introduction to some of the great writer's most
beguiling stories. Kafkaesque stands somewhere between adaptation
and wholly original creation, going beyond a simple illustration of
Kafka's words to become a stunning work of art.
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The Aphorisms of Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka; Edited by 'Reiner Stach; Translated by Shelley Frisch
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R404
Discovery Miles 4 040
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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A splendid new translation of an extraordinary work of modern
literature—featuring facing-page commentary by Kafka’s
acclaimed biographer In 1917 and 1918, Franz Kafka wrote a set of
more than 100 aphorisms, known as the Zürau aphorisms, after the
Bohemian village in which he composed them. Among the most
mysterious of Kafka’s writings, they explore philosophical
questions about truth, good and evil, and the spiritual and sensory
world. This is the first annotated, bilingual volume of these
extraordinary writings, which provide great insight into Kafka’s
mind. Edited, introduced, and with commentaries by preeminent Kafka
biographer and authority Reiner Stach, and freshly translated by
Shelley Frisch, this beautiful volume presents each aphorism on its
own page in English and the original German, with accessible and
enlightening notes on facing pages. The most complex of Kafka’s
writings, the aphorisms merge literary and analytical thinking and
are radical in their ideas, original in their images and metaphors,
and exceptionally condensed in their language. Offering up
Kafka’s characteristically unsettling charms, the aphorisms at
times put readers in unfamiliar, even inhospitable territory, which
can then turn luminous: “I have never been in this place before:
breathing works differently, and a star shines next to the sun,
more dazzlingly still.” Above all, this volume reveals that these
multifaceted gems aren’t far removed from Kafka’s novels and
stories but are instead situated squarely within his
cosmos—arguably at its very core. Long neglected by Kafka readers
and scholars, his aphorisms have finally been given their full due
here.
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