Complete Short Stories

This volume contains all of Kafka's shorter fiction, from fragments, parables and sketches, to longer, complete tales. Together they reveal the breadth of Kafka's literary vision and the extraordinary imaginative depth of his thought. Some- like `The Metamorphosis', in which Gregor Samsa wakes up to find himself transformed into a giant insect, or `The Judgement' written in a single night of frenzied creativity- are well known. Others are mere jottings, observations of daily life, given cameo-like artistic form through Kafka's unique perception of the world. Enigmatic and paradoxical, these represent Kafka at his most profoundly pessimistic and his most whimsicially humorous.

About the Author

The son of a well-to-do merchant, FRANZ KAFKA was born in Prague in 1883 and died of tuberculosis in a sanatorium near Vienna in 1924. After earning a law degree in 1906, he worked most of his adult life at the Workers Accident Insurance Company for the Kingdom of Bohemia in Prague. Only a small portion of his writings were published during his lifetime; most of them, including the three unfinished novels, AMERIKA, THE TRIAL, and THE CASTLE, were published posthumously.