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His stories include The Metamorphosis (1912) and In the Penal Colony (1914), while his novels are The Trial (1925), The Castle (1926) and Amerika (1927).

Kafka learned German as his first language, but he was also fluent in Czech. Later, Kafka acquired some knowledge of French language and culture; one of his favorite authors was Flaubert. From 1889 to 1893, he attended the Deutsche Knabenschule, the boys' elementary school at the Masný trh/Fleischmarkt (meat market), the street now known as Masná street. His Jewish education was limited to his Bar Mitzvah celebration at 13 and going to the synagogue four times a year with his father, which he loathed.[6] After elementary school, he was admitted to the rigorous classics-oriented state gymnasium, Altstädter Deutsches Gymnasium, an academic secondary school with eight grade levels, where German was also the language of instruction, at Old Town Square, within the Kinsky Palace. He completed his Maturita exams in 1901.

Admitted to the Charles-Ferdinand University of Prague, Kafka first studied chemistry, but switched after two weeks to law. This offered a range of career possibilities, which pleased his father, and required a longer course of study that gave Kafka time to take classes in German studies and art history. At the university, he joined a student club, named Lese- und Redehalle der Deutschen Studenten, which organized literary events, readings and other activities. In the end of his first year of studies, he met Max Brod, who would become a close friend of his throughout his life, together with the journalist Felix Weltsch, who also studied law. Kafka obtained the degree of Doctor of Law on 18 June 1906 and performed an obligatory year of unpaid service as law clerk for the civil and criminal courts.

Kafka learned German as his first language, but he was also fluent in Czech. Later, Kafka acquired some knowledge of French language and culture; one of his favorite authors was Flaubert. From 1889 to 1893, he attended the Deutsche Knabenschule, the boys' elementary school at the Masný trh/Fleischmarkt (meat market), the street now known as Masná street. His Jewish education was limited to his Bar Mitzvah celebration at 13 and going to the synagogue four times a year with his father, which he loathed.[6] After elementary school, he was admitted to the rigorous classics-oriented state gymnasium, Altstädter Deutsches Gymnasium, an academic secondary school with eight grade levels, where German was also the language of instruction, at Old Town Square, within the Kinsky Palace. He completed his Maturita exams in 1901.

Admitted to the Charles-Ferdinand University of Prague, Kafka first studied chemistry, but switched after two weeks to law. This offered a range of career possibilities, which pleased his father, and required a longer course of study that gave Kafka time to take classes in German studies and art history. At the university, he joined a student club, named Lese- und Redehalle der Deutschen Studenten, which organized literary events, readings and other activities. In the end of his first year of studies, he met Max Brod, who would become a close friend of his throughout his life, together with the journalist Felix Weltsch, who also studied law. Kafka obtained the degree of Doctor of Law on 18 June 1906 and performed an obligatory year of unpaid service as law clerk for the civil and criminal courts.

Kafka's writing attracted little attention until after his death. During his lifetime, he published only a f]]> male Prague 1883/07/03 1924/06/03 17690 0099428644 9780099428640 393 <![CDATA[The Trial]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17690.The_Trial 3.97 7449
According to Kafka's friend Max Brod, the author never finished the novel and wrote in his will that it was to be destroyed. After his death, Brod went against Kafka's wishes and edited The Trial into what he felt was a coherent novel and had it published in 1925.

The Trial was filmed and released in 1962 by director Orson Welles, starring Anthony Perkins (as Josef K.) and Romy Schneider. A more recent remake was released in 1993 and featured Kyle MacLachlan in the star role. In 1999, it was adapted for comics by Italian artist Guido Crepax.

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Plot summary

On his thirtieth birthday, a senior bank clerk, Josef K., who lives in lodgings, is unexpectedly arrested by two unidentified agents for an unspecified crime. The agents do not name the authority for which they are acting. He is not taken away, however, but left at home to await instructions from the Committee of Affairs.

Josef K goes to visit the magistrate, but instead is forced to have a meeting with an attendant's wife. Looking at the Magistrate's books, he discovers a cache of pornography.

Josef returns home to find Fräulein Montag, a lodger from another room, moving in with Fräulein Bürstner. He suspects that this is to prevent him from pursuing his affair with the latter woman. Yet another lodger, Captain Lanz, appears to be in league with Montag.

Later, in a store room at his own bank, Josef K discovers the two agents who arrested him being whipped by a flogger for asking Josef for bribes, as a result of complaints Josef K previously made about them to the Magistrate. K. tries to argue with the flogger, saying that the men need not be whipped, but the flogger cannot be swayed.

This surreal event appears to have been staged for his viewing, either to simply frighten him, or to demonstrate the seriousness with which the court views incompetence and corruption. The next day he returns to the store room and is shocked to find everything as he had found it the day before, including the Whipper and the two agents.

Josef K is visited by his influential uncle, who by coincidence is a friend of a lawyer. That lawyer was with the Clerk of the Court. The uncle is, or appears to be, distressed by Josef's predicament and is at first sympathetic, but becomes concerned that K is underestimating the seriousness of the case. The uncle introduces Josef K to an Advocate, who is attended by Leni, a nurse, who is also his mistress. K has a sexual encounter with Leni, whilst his uncle is talking with the Advocate and the Chief Clerk of the Court, much to his uncle's anger, and to the detriment of his case.

K visits the advocate and finds him to be a capricious and unhelpful character. K returns to his bank but finds that his colleagues are trying to undermine him.

Josef K is advised by one of his bank clients to visit Titorelli, a painter, for advice. Titorelli has no official connections, yet seems to have a deep understanding of the process. He explains: "You see, everything belongs to the Court." He sets out what K's options are, but the consequences of all of them are unpleasant. The laborious requirements of these options, and the limited outlook that they offer, lead the reader to lose hope for Josef K.

Josef K decides to take control of his own life and visits his advocate with the intention of dismissing him. At the advocate's office he meets a downtrodden individual, Block, a client who offers K some insight from a client's perspective. Block's case has continued for five years, yet he appears to have been virtually enslaved by his dependence on the advocate's unpredictable advice. This experience further poisons K's opinion of his advocate, and K is bemused as to why his advocate would think that seeing such a client, in such a state, could change his mind. This chapter was left unfinished by the author.

K has to show an important client from Italy around the Cathedral. The client doesn't show up, but just as K is leaving the Cathedral, the priest calls out K's name, although K has never known the priest. The priest works for the court, and tells K a fable, (which has been published separately as Before the Law) that is meant to explain his situation, but instead causes confusion, and implies that K's fate is hopeless. Before the Law begins as a parable, then continues with several pages of interpretation between the Priest and Josef K. The gravity of the priest's words prepares the reader for an unpleasant ending.
On the last day of Josef K's thirtieth year, two men arrive to execute him. He offers little resistance, suggesting that he has realised this as being inevitable for some time. They lead him to a quarry where he is expected to kill himself, but he cannot. The two men then execute him. His last words describe his own death: "Like a dog!"
As the novel was never completed, certain inconsistencies exist within the novel, such as disparities in timing in addition to other flaws in narration.]]> 5223 3.86 57390 2913 13007 3.98 8743 503 13006 3.98 8724 494 13004 3.95 10378 574 1925 22904 0805210555 9780805210552 151 <![CDATA[The Complete Stories]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1223588017m/22904.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1223588017s/22904.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22904.The_Complete_Stories 4.39 2864 5223 3.86 57390 2913 1971 17689 082221900X 9780822219002 162 <![CDATA[The Castle]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17689.The_Castle 3.90 2568 The Castle is a major literary event.

One of three unfinished novels left after Kafka's death, The Castle is in many ways the writer's most enduring and influential work. In Harman's muscular translation, Kafka's text seems more modern than ever, the words tumbling over one another, the sentences separated only by commas. Harman's version also ends the same way as Kafka's original manuscript--that is, in mid-sentence: "She held out her trembling hand to K. and had him sit down beside her, she spoke with great difficulty, it was difficult to understand her, but what she said--." For anyone used to reading Kafka in his artificially complete form, the effect is extraordinary; it is as if Kafka himself had just stepped from the room, leaving behind him a work whose resolution is the more haunting for being forever out of reach.

]]> 5223 3.86 57390 2913 877884 3.90 2577 165 3070002 3.90 2583 166 13004 3.95 10378 574 1926 7723 1593080298 9781593080297 130 <![CDATA[The Metamorphosis and Other Stories]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165639347m/7723.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165639347s/7723.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7723.The_Metamorphosis_and_Other_Stories 3.89 2557 Franz Kafka is now one of the world’s most widely read and discussed authors. His nightmarish novels and short stories have come to symbolize modern man’s anxiety and alienation in a bizarre, hostile, and dehumanized world. This vision is most fully realized in Kafka’s masterpiece, “The Metamorphosis,” a story that is both harrowing and amusing, and a landmark of modern literature.

Bringing together some of Kafka’s finest work, this collection demonstrates the richness and variety of the author’s artistry. “The Judgment,” which Kafka considered to be his decisive breakthrough, and “The Stoker,” which became the first chapter of his novel Amerika, are here included. These two, along with “The Metamorphosis,” form a suite of stories Kafka referred to as “The Sons,” and they collectively present a devastating portrait of the modern family.



Also included are “In the Penal Colony,” a story of a torture machine and its operators and victims, and “A Hunger Artist,” about the absurdity of an artist trying to communicate with a misunderstanding public. Kafka’s lucid, succinct writing chronicles the labyrinthine complexities, the futility-laden horror, and the stifling oppressiveness that permeate his vision of modern life.

</div>]]> 5223 3.86 57390 2913 1950 17688 0684800705 9780684800707 95 <![CDATA[The Metamorphosis, In The Penal Colony, and Other Stories]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166829695m/17688.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166829695s/17688.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17688.The_Metamorphosis_In_The_Penal_Colony_and_Other_Stories 4.04 1360 Translated by PEN translation award-winner Joachim Neugroschel, The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories has garnered critical acclaim and is widely recognized as the preeminent English-language anthology of Kafka's stories. These translations illuminate one of this century's most controversial writers and have made Kafka's work accessible to a whole new generation. This classic collection of forty-one great short works -- including such timeless pieces of modern fiction as "The Judgment" and "The Stoker" -- now includes two new stories, "First Sorrow" and "The Hunger Artist."

]]> 5223 3.86 57390 2913 1988 22911 0805210644 9780805210644 88 <![CDATA[Amerika]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167371996m/22911.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167371996s/22911.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22911.Amerika 3.65 1470 5223 3.86 57390 2913 1927 141352 8090217117 9788090217119 34 <![CDATA[A Hunger Artist]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1223644023m/141352.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1223644023s/141352.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/141352.A_Hunger_Artist 4.17 840 5223 3.86 57390 2913 1996 581552 21 <![CDATA[The Penal Colony]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1216057243m/581552.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1216057243s/581552.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/581552.The_Penal_Colony 4.09 638
In this story we are introduced to four principal characters: the officer, the explorer, the condemned man and the soldier. These characters emerge like chess pieces in this drama to become stronger or weaker as the story unfolds.]]> 5223 3.86 57390 2913 1948 187569 0805204261 9780805204261 11 <![CDATA[Letter to His Father]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1205619533m/187569.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1205619533s/187569.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/187569.Letter_to_His_Father 3.93 321 5223 3.86 57390 2913 13005 3.97 523 30 706490 3.97 525 31 13004 3.95 10378 574 1960 17686 0805209069 9780805209068 15 <![CDATA[Diaries of Franz Kafka (Schocken Classics Series)]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166829694m/17686.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166829694s/17686.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17686.Diaries_of_Franz_Kafka 4.25 287
"What seems to hold [the diaries] together is a kind of ruthless honesty and self-awareness." -- New York Times

Though Franz Kafka is one of the greatest and most widely read and discussed authors of the twentieth century, and continues to be a tremendous influence on artists of our time, he remains an elusive figure, his life and work open to endless interpretation.

These diaries reveal the essential Kafka behind the enigmatic artist. Covering the period from 1910 to 1923, the year before Kafka's death at the age of forty, they provide a penetrating look into Kafka's world -- notes on life in Prague, accounts of his dreams, his feelings for the father he worshipped and for the woman he could not bring himself to marry, his sense of guilt and of being an outcast, and his struggles and triumphs in expressing himself as a writer.

Now, for the first time in this country, the complete diaries of Franz Kafka are available in one volume. They are not only indispensable to an understanding of Kafka the man and the artist, but are a compulsively readable, haunting account of a life of almost unbearable intensity.]]> 5223 3.86 57390 2913 1374