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The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories

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SKU:
1121
Condition:
Like New
Format:
Paperback, 317 pages
Publisher:
Schocken Books, Inc., 1995
Edition:
First Edition, Second Printing

One of the most terrifying stories ever written, "The Metamorphosis" introduces us to Gregor Samsa, the young man who wakes up to find himself transformed into a gigantic insect.  Along with the horrifying machine of "In the Penal Colony," the merciless condemnation of son by father of "The Judgment," and the starvation of "A Hunger Artist," Kafka created some of the most haunting, timeless, and enduring images of the nightmare world of everyday life.

This collection brings together the stories that Kafka allowed to be published during his lifetime.  To Max Brod, his literary executor, he wrote: "Of all my writings the only books that can stand are these....Should they disappear altogether that would please me best.  Only, since they do exist, I do not wish to hinder anyone who may want to, from keeping them."

Editorial Reviews

“Kafka’s survey of the insectile situation of young Jews in inner Bohemia can hardly be improved upon: ‘With their posterior legs they were still glued to their father’s Jewishness and with their wavering anterior legs they found no new ground.’ There is a sense in which Kafka’s Jewish question (‘What have I in common with Jews?’) has become everybody’s question, Jewish alienation the template for all our doubts. What is Muslimness? What is femaleness? What is Polishness? These days we all find our anterior legs flailing before us. We’re all insects, all Ungeziefer, now.” —Zadie Smith
 
“Kafka engaged in no technical experiments whatsoever; without in any way changing the German language, he stripped it of its involved constructions until it became clear and simple, like everyday speech purified of slang and negligence. The common experience of Kafka’s readers is one of general and vague fascination, even in stories they fail to understand, a precise recollection of strange and seemingly absurd images and descriptions—until one day the hidden meaning reveals itself to them with the sudden evidence of a truth simple and incontestable.” —Hannah Arendt

"In some ways, there has never been a better time for Kafka's work than now.  The last fifty years paved the way for [his] eerie beauty and seeming madness....'The Metamorphosis,' 'In the Penal Colony,' and 'A Hunger Artists' are among the finest horror stories ever written.  Seventy years after his death, art has finally begun to catch up with him." --From the Foreword by Anne Rice

With a New Foreword by Anne Rice

Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir

About the Author

A native of Prague, Franz Kafka (1883-1924) worked for an insurance company by day and wrote his tales of alienation and social anxiety in private. Like the majority of the author's work, The Trial was published after his untimely death from tuberculosis.