Franz Kafka was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer based in Prague, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic.
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Metamorphosis
₨ 200.00‘One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin.’ Thus begins The Metamorphosis, cited as one of the seminal works of fiction of the twentieth century. A story of Gregor Samsa, a travelling salesman, who wakes up one day to discover that he has metamorphosed into a bug, The Metamorphosis is a book that concerns itself with the themes of alienation, disillusionment and existentialism. As Samsa struggles to reconcile his humanity with his transformation, Kafka, very deftly, weaves his readers into a web that deals with the absurdity of existence, the alienating experience of modern life and the cruelty and incomprehensibility of authoritarian power, leaving them at once stunned and impressed. -
Investigations of a Dog
₨ 80.00‘If I think about it, and I have the time and inclination and capacity to do so, we dogs are an odd lot.’
How does a dog see the world? How do any of us? In this playful and enigmatic story of a canine philosopher, Kafka explores the limits of knowledge.
Translated from the German by Michael Hofmann (Translator).
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Letters to Milena
₨ 800.00Kafka first made the acquaintance of Milena Jesenska in 1920 when she was translating his early short prose into Czech, and their relationship quickly developed into a deep attachment. Such was his feeling for her that Kafka showed her his diaries and, in doing so, laid bare his heart and his conscience. While at times Milena’s ‘genius for living’ gave Kafka new life, it ultimately exhausted him, and their relationship was to last little over two years. In 1924 Kafka died in a sanatorium near Vienna, and Milena died in 1944 at the hands of the Nazis, leaving these letters as a moving record of their relationship.
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The Complete Novels
₨ 1,280.00Kafka’s characters are victims of forces beyond their control, estranged and rootless citizens deceived by authoritarian power. Filled with claustrophobic description and existential profundity, Kafka has been compared to a literary Woody Allen.
Translated from the German by Edwin Muir (Translator).
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The Castle
₨ 800.00The Castle is the story of K., the unwanted Land Surveyor who is never to be admitted to the Castle nor accepted in the village, and yet cannot go home. As he encounters dualities of certainty and doubt, hope and fear, and reason and nonsense, K.’s struggles in the absurd, labyrinthine world where he finds himself seem to reveal an inexplicable truth about the nature of existence. Kafka began The Castle in 1922 and it was never finished, yet this, the last of his three great novels, draws fascinating conclusions that make it feel strangely complete.
Translated from the German by J.A. Underwood (Translator).
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The Trial
₨ 560.00A terrifying psychological trip into the life of one Joseph K., an ordinary man who wakes up one day to find himself accused of a crime he did not commit, a crime whose nature is never revealed to him. Once arrested, he is released, but must report to court on a regular basis–an event that proves maddening, as nothing is ever resolved. As he grows more uncertain of his fate, his personal life–including work at a bank and his relations with his landlady and a young woman who lives next door–becomes increasingly unpredictable. As K. tries to gain control, he succeeds only in accelerating his own excruciating downward spiral.
Translated from the German by Idris Parry (Translator).
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Amerika
₨ 800.00Karl Rossman has been banished by his parents to America, following a family scandal. There, with unquenchable optimism, he throws himself into the strange experiences that lie before him as he slowly makes his way into the interior of the great continent.
Although Kafka’s first novel (begun in 1911 and never finished), can be read as a menacing allegory of modern life, it is also infused with a quite un-Kafkaesque blitheness and sunniness, brought to life in this lyrical translation that returns to the original manuscript of the book.
Translated from the German by Michael Hofmann (Translator).
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The Burrow and Other Stories
₨ 800.00A superb new translation by Michael Hofmann of some of Kafka’s most frightening and visionary short fiction Strange beasts, night terrors, absurd bureaucrats and sinister places abound in this collection of stories by Franz Kafka. Some are less than a page long, others more substantial; all were unpublished in his lifetime. These matchless short works range from the gleeful miniature horror ‘Little Fable’ to the off-kilter humour of ‘Investigations of a Dog’, and from the elaborate waking nightmare of ‘Building the Great Wall of China’ to the creeping unease of ‘The Burrow’, where a nameless creature’s labyrinthine hiding place turns into a trap of fear and paranoia.
Translated from the German by Michael Hofmann (Translator).
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The Unhappiness of Being a Single Man: Essential Stories
₨ 880.00No one has captures the modern experience, its wild dreams, strange joys, its neuroses and boredom, better than Franz Kafka. His vision, with its absurdity and twisted humour, has lost none of its force or relevance today. This essential collection, newly selected and translated by Alexander Starritt, casts fresh light on Kafka’s genius.
Translated from the German by Alexander Starritt (Translator).
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Metamorphosis & Other Stories
₨ 720.00In the bizarre world of Franz Kafka, salesmen turn into giant bugs, apes give lectures at college academies, and nightmares probe the mysteries of modern humanity’s unhappiness. More than any other modern writer in world literature, Kafka captures the loneliness and misery that fill the lives of 20th-century humanity.
Translated from the German by Willa Muir (translator) & Edwin Muir (translator).