It is one of the most memorable first lines in all of literature: "When Gregor Samsa woke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed into some kind of monstrous vermin." So begins Kafka's famous short story, The Metamorphosis. Kafka considered publishing it with two of the stories included here in a volume to be called Punishments. The Judgment explores an enigmatic power struggle between a father and son, while In the Penal Colony examines questions of power, justice, punishment, and the meaning of pain in a colonial setting. These three stories are flanked by two very different works. Meditation, the first book Kafka published, consists of light, whimsical, often poignant mood-pictures, while the autobiographical Letter to his Father analyzes his difficult relationship with his father in devastating detail. This new translation by Joyce Crick pays particular attention to the nuances of Kafka's style, and the Introduction and notes by Ritchie Robertson provide guidance to this most enigmatic and rewarding of writers. There is also a Biographical Preface, an up-to-date bibliography, and a chronology of Kafka's life.
Author(s): Franz Kafka, Ritchie Robertson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Year: 2009
Language: English
Pages: 195
Contents......Page 6
Biographical Preface......Page 8
Introduction......Page 12
Note on the Text......Page 35
Note on the Translation......Page 36
Select Bibliography......Page 42
A Chronology of Franz Kafka......Page 47
Children on the Highway......Page 52
Unmasking a Confidence-Man......Page 54
The Sudden Stroll......Page 56
The Trip to the Mountains......Page 57
The Small Businessman......Page 58
The Way Home......Page 60
The Passenger......Page 61
The Rebuff......Page 62
The Window on to the Street......Page 63
Unhappiness......Page 64
THE JUDGEMENT......Page 68
THE METAMORPHOSIS......Page 78
IN THE PENAL COLONY......Page 124
LETTER TO HIS FATHER......Page 149
Explanatory Notes......Page 190
