Essential Kafka. Kafka. Franz

Franz Kafka writes about fear and life cut off from others. His characters live under powers they cannot grasp. This book includes The Trial, The Castle, and Metamorphosis. It has other stories too.

In The Trial, hidden rules make the world hard to grasp. Its dark wit probes systems of rules and those who run them. It probes human nature too. The Castle asks what it means to be free. It asks about faith and the need to belong. It also asks why we need others to approve of us.

The book has novels and short tales for readers of English. Kafka blends bleak wit with doubts that have no clear answers. Wordsworth Editions brought out this paperback in 2014. It has 640 pages. John R. Williams wrote the translation and the introduction.