Description

Franz Kafka’s stories show people trapped in a world without sense. Some face life in the body of a frightening insect. Others live under harsh systems that crush them. They cannot break free of their own limits. Nor can they escape the forces that hold them. They feel guilt but cannot grasp its cause.

This book brings together some of Kafka’s best-known short tales. They deal with fear, guilt, and the loss of freedom. Mihai Isbășescu translated them from German. The book forms part of the Esențial series.

Kafka was born in Prague in 1883 to a Jewish family. He went to a German secondary school. He then studied law at Ferdinand-Karls University. He earned his doctorate in 1906. He worked as a lawyer for an insurance firm. At night, he wrote in secret. His friend, the poet Max Brod, urged him to publish. A book of his stories came out in 1913. It found success. Kafka also kept journals and wrote many letters.

In 1914, he began The Trial. He also began the story In the Penal Colony that year. He published Metamorphosis the next year. He left all three of his novels unfinished. These were The Trial, The Castle, and America. They came out in 1925, 1926, and 1927. He destroyed much of his work before his death. He died on 3 June 1924. Brod later gathered and published the work that remained. This went against Kafka’s wish to have it burned. Kafka’s strange view of the world was full of fear. It shaped writers from the French existentialists to Salinger and Saramago.