Essential Kafka: Rendezvous with 'otherness'

by Franz Kafka, Phillip Lundberg (Translator)

Expanded SECOND Edition now has 9 stories & 3 excerpts:
Judgment, Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, An Address to the Academy, A Country Doctor, The Burrow, Investigations of a Dog, Hunger Artist, Josephine the Songstress & - Josef K.!, The Messenger and Nocturnal Investigations (from Kafka's novels).

This translation of Kafka has a dual purpose, for starters it intends to provide English readers with a better translation: that Kafka's prose should find a more fitting analogy in 'modern (American) English' whereby it should come to life to a greater degree, and that his underlying philosophy-and I say philosophy in the greater sense-thus, should be grasped more readily. The second purpose is to explore issues regarding translation per se: what is the proper role of the translator? and why are so many translations done so poorly? The five stories included in this book have been carefully selected to present Kafka's literary genius in its historical genesis: from Metamophosis (1912), Report to the Academy (1917), In the Penal Colony (1915), The Burrow (1923/24) - to Kafka's "last word" Josephine the Songstress or The Mouse Folk which was written shortly before Kafka's death in 1924. This book also contains a short postscript on the art of translation that argues against the current modus operandi of translation theory, indeed, it goes so far as to quote from Kafka's diaries as well as from Schleiermacher and early Roman translators on the responsibility of the translator to capture the spirit of the work in an imaginative manner.

Genres: Literature

276 pages, Paperback

First published June 10, 2009

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

[Phillip · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will no longer be available as of March 2024.
Kafka Unleashed will no longer be published "by" Authorhouse,
I am in process of trying out Atticus....
time will tell.

[Skyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Kafka stories, but the translator's notes are irritating and often not relevant or useful