Franz Kafka: The Complete Novels

by Franz Kafka, MyBooks Classics

Content : Unhappiness The Judgment Before the Law The Metamorphosis A Report to an Academy Jackals and Arabs A Country Doctor In the Penal Colony A Hunger Artist The Trial The Castle Amerika A Little Fable The Great Wall of China The Hunter Gracchus The Burrow

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Literature, Classic Literature, Ebooks, Novels

1167 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 28, 2019

About the author

Franz Kafka was a German-speaking writer from Prague whose work became one of the foundations of modern literature, even though he published only a small part of his writing during his lifetime. Born into a middle-class Jewish family in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kafka grew up amid German, Czech, and Jewish cultural influences that shaped his sense of displacement and linguistic precision. His difficult relationship with his authoritarian father left a lasting mark, fostering feelings of guilt, anxiety, and inadequacy that became central themes in his fiction and personal writings.
Kafka studied law at the German University in Prague, earning a doctorate in 1906. He chose law for practical reasons rather than personal inclination, a compromise that troubled him throughout his life. After university, he worked for several insurance institutions, most notably the Workers Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. His duties included assessing industrial accidents and drafting legal reports, work he carried out competently and responsibly. Nevertheless, Kafka regarded his professional life as an obstacle to his true vocation, and most of his writing was done at night or during periods of illness and leave. Kafka began publishing short prose pieces in his early adulthood, later collected in volumes such as Contemplation and A Country Doctor. These works attracted little attention at the time but already displayed the hallmarks of his mature style, including precise language, emotional restraint, and the application of calm logic to deeply unsettling situations. His major novels The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika were left unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime. They depict protagonists trapped within opaque systems of authority, facing accusations, rules, or hierarchies that remain unexplained and unreachable. Themes of alienation, guilt, bureaucracy, law, and punishment run throughout Kafka’s work. His characters often respond to absurd or terrifying circumstances with obedience or resignation, reflecting his own conflicted relationship with authority and obligation. Kafka’s prose avoids overt symbolism, yet his narratives function as powerful metaphors through structure, repetition, and tone. Ordinary environments gradually become nightmarish without losing their internal coherence. Kafka’s personal life was marked by emotional conflict, chronic self-doubt, and recurring illness. He formed intense but troubled romantic relationships, including engagements that he repeatedly broke off, fearing that marriage would interfere with his writing. His extensive correspondence and diaries reveal a relentless self-critic, deeply concerned with morality, spirituality, and the demands of artistic integrity. In his later years, Kafka’s health deteriorated due to tuberculosis, forcing him to withdraw from work and spend long periods in sanatoriums. Despite his illness, he continued writing when possible. He died young, leaving behind a large body of unpublished manuscripts. Before his death, he instructed his close friend Max Brod to destroy all of his remaining work. Brod ignored this request and instead edited and published Kafka’s novels, stories, and diaries, ensuring his posthumous reputation.
The publication of Kafka’s work after his death established him as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. The term Kafkaesque entered common usage to describe situations marked by oppressive bureaucracy, absurd logic, and existential anxiety. His writing has been interpreted through existential, religious, psychological, and political perspectives, though Kafka himself resisted definitive meanings. His enduring power lies in his ability to articulate modern anxiety with clarity and restraint.

Reviews

[Hilda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved reading these short stories by this new to me author. I wish I had learned about him in High School, but now that I've been introduced to his writing I plan to seek out more of his work. ♡

[Stuart Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have only managed to get halfway through this before giving up. The only reason I carried on so far is that he is an author of such great renown. However, I cannot see why. He is very difficult to read and if not for his reputation I would have stopped in the first chapter. His writing left me feeling that I had just woken from a confused dream and was trying to figure out what it meant. Not an enjoyable experience and I doubt I will return to try to finish or reread it.

[Hans Prok · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot like a dream sequence !

Entertaining , confusing, well written in many respects. Often has a dream like feeling to it. Like an unexplainable dream that you remember.

[Jorge Graça · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kafka é Kafka.

Não tenho conhecimento literário para fazer justiça ao que ele escreve numa recomendação.

Só me arrependo de na ignorância da minha adolescência o ter criticado tanto.

Especialmente interessante para quem quer que já tenha trabalhado ou lidado continuamente com serviços burocráticos do que quer que seja.

[yefeiyu · Rating 5 out of 5]

VERYGLAD TO READ THE EAUTIFUL BOOK ~ THANKS LOT TO AUTHOR AN MAKER!

I am glad to read this book
It is a interesying story
I had read it for many times
Thanks
I'm advise you buy and read

[Cherye Elliott · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read

[Moushmi Radhanpara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Metamorphoses a few years earlier which brought me to Kafka and his complete collections. To date Metamorphoses remains the best of his work for me, for his dream-like stance, language, concepts and meaninglessness.

I embarked on reading this collection somewhere around the beginning of the year and made slow progress through his other short stories, Amerika, The Castle and other works. Needless to say Kafka is a gem and a captive through his works. However, I must admit that I preferred his short stories more to his other longer works, Metamorphoses and Amerika barred.

[Hakki Ocal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kafkaesque

I liked it of course. But the text was riddled with typos. It should have been proof-read by an expert.

[KinksToTheBone · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible edition. No Table of Contents or index. Novels mixed up with short stories, essays etc. Definitely better Kafka editions out there.

[Joanne Fitzgerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

why was i so invested in that little animal and his burrow ?

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Forced myself to read all three of these long torrid books... Wasn't worth it.