The best-known novellas and stories of one of the seminal writers of the twentieth century. Included are The Judgment, A Country Doctor, and A Hunger Artist. New Foreword by Anne Rice. Review Kafkas 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 fathers Jewishness and with their wavering anterior legs they found no new ground. There is a sense in which Kafkas Jewish question (What have I in common with Jews?) has become everybodys 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. Were 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 Kafkas 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
ALOIS NEBEL 
| 
