Michael Hofmann's startlingly visceral and immediate translation revives Kafka's great comedy, and captures a new Kafka, free from Prague and loose in the new world, a Kafka shot through with light in this highly charged and enormously nuanced translation. Kafka began the first of his three novels in 1911, but like the others, Amerika remained unfinished, and perhaps, as Klaus Mann suggested, "necessarily endless." Karl Rossman, the youthful hero of the novel, "a poor boy of seventeen," has been banished by his parents to America, following a scandal. There, with unquenchable optimism, he throws himself into adventure after misadventure, and experiences multiply as he makes his way into the heart of the country, to The Great Nature Theater of Oklahoma. In creating this new translation, Hofmann, as he explains in his introduction, returned to the manuscript version of the book, restoring matters of substance and detail. Fragments which have never before been presented in English are now reinstated including the book's original "ending." The San Francisco Chronicle said Hofmann's "sleek translation does a wonderful job" and The New York Times concurred: "Anything by Kafka is worth reading again, especially in the hands of such a gifted translator as Hofmann."
Industry Reviews
"That the Statue of Liberty holds a sword instead of a torch and that a bridge connects New York City and Boston unsettle the reading by placing an essentially realist novel close to the realm of fantasy. Hofmann's slick, sleek translation does a wonderful job of keeping those competing forces in balance." This new translation is more successful in conveying ... a sense of Kafka's unfinished work. -- Veronika Tuckerova achieves what translations are supposedly unable wonderful job of keeping those competing forces in balance. Anything by Kafka is worth reading again, especially in the hands of such a gifted translator as Hofmann. [Hofmann's] new translation is more successful in conveying ... a sense of Kafka's unfinished work.--Veronika Tuckerova One can hardly fail to welcome Michael Hofmann's more accurate English text. Hofmann's translation is invaluable....It achieves what translations are supposedly unable to do: it is at once 'loyal' and 'beautiful.'--John Zilcosky Hofmann's slick, sleek translation does a wonderful job of keeping those competing forces in balance. Unpredictable and funny, as close to a Buster Keaton comedy as you can get.--Jim Krusoe A stirring, singular work, now restored to its original beauty.--John Ashbery Michael Hofmann s magnificent new translation restores its rightful place as one of Kafka s most delightful and most memorable works.--Charles Simic" Hofmann s ability to overcome the obstacles presented by this particular work from Kafka marks this as the best translation." Michael Hofmann's magnificent new translation restores its rightful place as one of Kafka's most delightful and most memorable works.--Charles Simic Of all the recent re-translations of Kafka into English, this volume is the most noteworthy. It achieves what translations are supposedly unable to do; it is at once 'loyal' and 'beautiful'--beautifully disorienting, beautifully confusing, beautifully cruel.--John Zilcosky Hofmann's ability to overcome the obstacles presented by this particular work from Kafka marks this as the best translation.
