Dix versions de Kafka

by Maïa Hruska

Kafkaesque has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.

Genres: Nonfiction, Books About Books, Audiobook, History

240 pages, Paperback

Published September 4, 2024

About the author

Née en 1991 au sein d’une famille franco-tchèque, Maïa Hruska a grandi en Allemagne et vit aujourd’hui à Londres. Dix versions de Kafka est son premier essai.

Reviews

[Matthew Ted · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anything Kafka related tends to be endlessly interesting to me and on the whole this does a good, albeit basic, job of exploring ten of his translators. The writing is colloquial (she says things like 'Let's rewind again') and easy, but I did find myself thinking at times that it read a little like reading Wikipedia entries. There's not much style. I think a non-fiction book, to stand out and be enjoyable, needs as much style as a fiction book. It just lacks here, even when the subject matter is interesting. Ironically, at the end of the book, Hruska allows herself to enter the narrative and the book was suddenly heightened for me. Her grandmother's name was Ludmilla Kafka. What a coincidence! I can understand why Hruska decided to leave herself out of the book on the whole, but the personal angle in the final chapter was the most invested I felt.

The chapters are:

Kafka: In the Land of the Soviets
Kafka and Eugene Jolas: The East-West Translation
Kafka and Jorge Luis Borges: Two Men in a Labyrinth
Kafka and Paul Celan: The Balm and the Wound
Kafka and Melech Ravitch: What Have You Done to Your Brother?
KAfka and Primo Levi: The Recurring Nightmare
Kafka and Alexandre Vialatte: Make Me Laugh
Kafka and Bruno Schulz: If Walls Could Talk
Kafka and Hebrew: The Promised Translation
Kafka and Milena Jesenská: A Love of Translation

Hruska mostly poses questions without entirely answering them. One of the central questions towards the end of the novel is about Kafka, Zionism and identity. She asks: 'was he Jewish? Czech? Austrian? German?' And some of her ideas seemed, at least to me, a bit of a stretch: 'Kafka's drawing [of the device from 'In the Penal Colony'] shows a man with his arms and legs outstretched to form the letter X. Cut it in two, and what do you see? Each half forms the letter K.' But for an easy, introductory look at a history of translating Kafka, this is not a bad place to begin.

Thanks to 4th Estate for the advance copy for review.

[adeline Bronner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un essai absolument magnifique sur l’art de la traduction, le rapport à la langue, à l’exil, à la mémoire et à la destruction d’une culture dans toute ses dimension. Les chapitres sur Borges, Schultz, Levi et Milena sont particulièrement touchants.
Tant de pistes de réflexion sont offertes par l’auteur, une vraie respiration dans cette rentrée littéraire française encore une fois terriblement autocentrée.

[Tass · Rating 4 out of 5]

not really about kafka or the mechanics of translation - more about specific Translators & their contexts & motivations, with kafka as its core. imagining this as a spiral staircase. had expected more consideration of the translations themselves - the texts and how they shifted in a much more literal/word-specific sense as that is what my own prior kafka study has centred on - but that is understandably limited by the premise of this (discussion of kafka’s translators into ten different languages). and the broader discussions and analysis were well considered & largely convincing. found it strange that the kafka quotes in english translation did not at any point credit translator.

some parts overwritten, others strangely colloquial, generally enjoyed more as i progressed through. endlessly fascinating how different people are always, differently, weird about kafka, as someone who is also weird about kafka.

also reignited my desire to learn more languages - pick up czech again. maybe even french. or something completely different.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to both NetGalley and Ecco Press for an advance copy of this book that looks at an author whose name has been adapted to explain not only his own writing, but the works of others, the translators who shared his stories with their world, and how these works affected all involved.

I have always found the idea and the art of translating works from one language to another fascinating. I remember when I was in middle school or maybe high school once asking how a poem in French could be translated to English, and still make sense. The words the rhymes, would be different I thought. I never really received an answer. Maybe I didn't ask it, or maybe it was lost in translation. Translators and translations have been a large subject over the years as many classic works have been looked at by modern scholars, and found lacking in many ways. Cultural points lost, confused, or just ignored. Some translators wanted to add their own thumbprint to certain works, or cared little for what they were hired for. There seems to be a resurgence, a golden age for translating, with numerous classics returning to print, with new understandings, new visions, and maybe a more complete tale. This book looks not just at the art of translation, but what translating works of one man meant to their lives. Kafkaesque :From Jorge Luis Borges to Primo Levi, Ten Writers Who Translated Kafka and Transformed Twentieth-Century Literature by Maïa Hruska and translated by Sam Taylor, is a look at the history of Kafka and how his works spread, by readers who felt they needed more, by translators who wanted to share, and writers whose works were affected by their time trying to understand better what made a story Kafkaesque.

For a person who wished that all his works were destroyed upon his death, Franz Kafka has cast a very large shadow over not only literature but art in general. Many movies, painting, graphic novels, and of course short long stories have been labeled Kafkaesque. A mix of surreal, with characters trapped in situations be it family, government, religious that are absurd, frightening, and very relatable. Hruska starts the book with a little bit of history about Kafka, his life, works death, and his hopes that his works would be burned and forgotten. Something that was not to be. Hruska looks at ten translators, some famous like Jorge Luis Borges, and some unfairly forgotten by history. Hruska gives a brief biography of these translators, spread across the globe, many changed by the Holocaust, many more changed by their exposure to Kafka. Hruska looks at what drew these people to the works, and how their own writing was effected by what the read, and what they translated.

A book about writing, translating and what words can do to and change a person. I was not sure what this book was about when I started it, but I found myself lost in the idea of words and what they can do. Hruska looks at how Kafka was viewed by various governments, the Nazis wanted his works destroyed, the Soviets were sure that these tales were comments about their inner workings. The book is very well-written and has an almost propulsive style, that keeps the reader flipping pages, as there is quite a lot going on. Hruska has an ability to capture the voice of all the translators, different people in different countries, and find what Kafka meant to them uniquely, and share this with readers.

A book for those who like literature, the art of translation and Kafka. History also. And the power of words. Actually there is quite a lot to like about this book, and one that I quite enjoyed.

[Domenico Fina · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Ecco come nasce la consapevolezza kafkiana: Kafka si sente colpevole di tutto perché consapevole che un giorno, non lontano, nessuno si sarebbe più sentito colpevole di nulla»

Saggio splendido per stile e intuizioni. Dieci capitoli nei quali viene raccontata l’iniziale accoglienza di Kafka nelle diverse lingue. Questo andare all’origine lo rende attualissimo, perché le vite poliglotte dei primi traduttori sono vite difficili, rese impossibili da sovranismi identitari, confini labili, lingue contese. In questo modo ci fa capire meglio l’oggi, a noi, tranquilli europei, tendenzialmente monolingue e vissuti in pace, concepiti in un’epoca senza conflitti di confine.

L’autrice, nata nel 1991, di lingua francese, ceca da parte di madre, vissuta in Germania e in Inghilterra, ha lo stesso rapporto mobile con le lingue. Importante e al centro del saggio è il concetto di pokoj, una parola di origine ceca, che intende esprimere il posto, fisico e mentale, nel quale si è se stessi nel punto più alto. Per molti di loro, Primo Levi, Bruno Schulz, Paul Celan, così come per Kafka, pokoj è la letteratura, o meglio l’andare continuamente a cercarla tra vita pubblica e privata, tenuto conto che i loro paesi e le loro lingue sono essenzialmente liquidi. «Pensiamo solo a Elias Canetti, il cui premio Nobel per la letteratura è stato rivendicato da ben sette paesi: la Bulgaria (dove era nato), la Spagna (per la lingua madre), la Germania (per la lingua in cui scriveva), la Turchia (per un vecchio passaporto), l’Austria (per le opere scritte sul suo territorio), l’Inghilterra (per il nuovo passaporto) e la Svizzera (per lo statuto di residente)».

Il primo capitolo, che tratta dell’accoglienza di Kafka in Russia è già un piccolo capolavoro, così come quelli dedicati a Borges, Bruno Schulz, Paul Celan, Primo Levi, Milena Jesenská, prima traduttrice di Kafka in ceco, e sua amante dal 1920 al 1923; «Siamo entrambi sposati, tu a Vienna con tuo marito, io a Praga con l’angoscia», lettera di Kafka a Milena del 21 luglio 1920. Tornando al primo capitolo, Kafka in Russia non viene letto negli anni Trenta ed è prevalentemente censurato per una serie di ragioni, Kafka è “smobilitante”, la sua tetraggine blocca il lettore, ma non è poi così vero per altri censori, per i quali Kafka non è così tetro, Kafka è uno scrittore semmai troppo sobrio, temperato, non suscita rivolte, non anima, «nulla ha il potere di inebriarlo, né la rivoluzione, né le donne, né gli ideali». Che poi i russi avevano avuto a che fare con l’opera di Cechov, e come scrisse Vasilij Grossman, non lo avevano perseguitato, cioè non era stata bandita la sua opera, perché l’essere intimamente democratico di Cechov (tutti uguali a prescindere da origine, professione, titoli) non lo capivano, lo avevano tollerato per un puro malinteso, non essendoci mai stata una vera democrazia in Russia, secondo Grossman (l’autore di Vita e destino).

Tra le molte cose interessanti che si scoprono in questo saggio, c’è l’idea che aveva Borges di traduzione, per Borges l’originale non ha nessuna prevalenza sulle traduzioni successive, nessuna maggiore autenticità, nessuna parola definitiva, il definitivo per Borges esiste soltanto per «la religione e per la stanchezza». Ogni traduzione è una sfasatura dall’originale e non è detto che non sia più autentica, Borges afferma di aver letto e amato Don Chisciotte per la prima volta in inglese, più in avanti, quando lo lesse in lingua originale, gli sembrava prolisso, Cervantes in spagnolo parlava troppo.

[Veerle · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I love most about books on literary history is when they approach their subject from an unexpected angle — and Kafkaesque does exactly that. Rather than offering yet another biography of Franz Kafka, Maïa Hruska reconstructs his (after)life through the writers who translated him. The result is a work that is as much cultural and intellectual history as it is literary criticism.

Drawing on the lives and translations of ten extraordinary figures — among them Jorge Luis Borges, Primo Levi, Bruno Schulz, Milena Jesenská, Paul Celan, Vladimir Nabokov, and several Russian writers in exile — Hruska shows how Kafka’s work did not simply travel across languages, but was reshaped by history, ideology, and personal fate.

Through these translators, Kafka becomes a viewmaster through which we glimpse the twentieth century itself: the censorship of the Soviet Union, exile and displacement, the Shoah, resistance, and the struggle for artistic autonomy. In the Czech context, for instance, the recognition of Kafka emerges as a profoundly political act — even an act of defiance.

Kafkaesque is also much more than literary history. It is a philosophical meditation on translation, language, and authorship. Hruska asks whether a book is ever truly finished, or whether it continues to live — and change — in translation. Particularly striking is her reflection on pokoj, a Czech word that suggests both a room and a state of inner peace: a mental and physical space needed for writing. The concept inevitably calls to mind Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, and adds another layer to the book’s quiet philosophical depth.

The individual stories of Kafka’s translators are beautifully chosen and deeply moving. Primo Levi’s engagement with Kafka affected me the most: translating The Trial using the German he had learned in Auschwitz awoke ghosts from the past. Bruno Schulz’s and Milena Jesenská’s stories are equally gripping. Elsewhere, Borges, Celan, and Russian translators in exile demonstrate how Kafka could become a companion — a writer in whom they recognized themselves.

And then there is Kafka himself. Seen through the eyes of those who translated him, we come to understand him more clearly: his ambivalence toward literature, his precision, his humor, his anxiety, and his radical originality. Kafka’s life and worldview emerge not through diary excerpts or letters alone, but through the intense, intimate act of translation — through how others read him in moments of extreme pressure and historical upheaval.

Elegant, insightful, and quietly moving, Kafkaesque is a book for readers who care about literature not just as text, but as a lived, ethical, and historical experience. It is a celebration of translation as creation — and of reading as a form of survival.

Thank you NetGalley and 4th Estate William Collins for the ARC!

[Roli Sehgal · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Kafkaesque” by Maia Hruska is a prize-winning exploration of Franz Kafka’s legacy. It is unique in focusing not on Kafka's fiction directly but on the untold story of his translators—how they shaped, preserved, and sometimes distorted his voice for global readers. The choice of translators selected by Hruska varies in age, region and ethnic identity thus capturing a wide spectrum of languages and ethnicities. The book highlights the troubles and labor of these translators in a geopoliticallly turbulent time and region. There is a constant thread saying that a translated book is as a much the translator's creation as it is that of the original writer. Thus the Kafka we read in our language is actually a creation of rounds of filtered translations and hence gives us a peep into the minds of the translators as well. There is also a subtle capture of the impact of the kafka's books in different cultures.
The book has been praised as both intellectually rigorous and deeply engaging. It is a delight for those who are interested in literature. However there is a lot of academic rigor and may not be appreciated by those who were just looking to read Kafka.

[Hoosier4321 Teresa H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kafkaesque is a thoughtful and engaging exploration of translation, literature, and the lasting influence of Franz Kafka. Instead of focusing solely on Kafka himself, Hruska examines the lives of ten writers and translators who helped bring Kafka’s work to new audiences around the world.

One of the book’s greatest strengths is the way it presents translation as an art form rather than a simple technical process. Hruska explores how history, politics, exile, and personal experience shaped the way these translators understood Kafka, and how translating him transformed their own perspectives and writing in return.

Despite dealing with literary history and translation, the book remains highly readable and accessible throughout. Hruska has a talent for making complex ideas accessible while still capturing the emotional and intellectual weight behind these stories. Insightful and interesting, Kafkaesque is a rewarding read for anyone interested in literature, translation, history, or the lasting power of words.

I am glad to have won this book through a GoodReads giveaway.

[GONZA · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t have the expertise to critique this book meaningfully, but I can say it was quite interesting—especially when the translators of Kafka were writers I knew more or less well, such as Borges or Primo Levi.
Another thing I seemed to understand is that Kafka could be a kind of projective test, where each translator highlights aspects of his writing (Kafka’s) that in some way belong to them—whether through culture, religion, or shared experiences. I don’t particularly like Kafka, but I chose to request this book to understand why he is considered such a great writer, and I think I’ve at least scratched the surface.

Non ho le competenze adatte per criticare questo libro in mod sensato, posso dire che era abbastanza interessante, di piú quando i traduttori di Kafka erano scrittori che conoscevo piú o meno bene, come per esempio Borges o Primo Levi.
Un'altra cosa che mi é sembrata di capire é che Kafka potrebbe essere una specie di test proiettivo, dove ogni traduttore mette in luce aspetti della sua scrittura (di Kafka) che in qualche modo gli appartengono, o per cultura o per via della religione o per le esperienze che in qualche modo li accomunano. A me non piace particolarmente Kafka, ma ho scelto di richiedere questo libro, per capire come mai viene considerato uno scrittore eccelso e credo di aver grattato quanto meno la superficie.

I received from the Publisher a complimentary digital advanced review copy of the book in exchange for a honest review.

[Violet · Rating 5 out of 5]

That was an excellent find (on Netgalley) - a niche subject maybe but done so well and so interesting. I read Kafka as a teenager at school and I don't think we ever spoke of the translator who worked on his texts. I was surprised to see so many familiar names (Paul Celan, Vialatte, Borges) appear and their relationship to Kafka, the German language and Judaism in general. There was a lot too about the relationship of various places to Kafka, whose books were banned in several countries, and the efforts of several intellectuals to rehabilitate him, like Sartre trying to convince the Soviet Union that Kafka was in fact writing about Western bureaucracy and couldn't be read as an allegory of Soviet communism in any way...
I loved the book and its focus on words and translation, and the translation itself (the book was initially written in French) by Sam Taylor is impeccable.

[Cathy Beyers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not a big non-fiction reading but this book combined several of my passions, Kafka and translation. It is a very interesting exploration of how writers interpret and translate other writers, so it is not just another book about Kafka. Translating is a difficult process that goes beyond finding words for other words in a different language so there will always be an emotional aspect to it. Who better to understand a writer than another writer? The author looks at Kafka and other authors, like Borges, Levi and Schultz, that were instrumental in translating his work.It is a interesting exploration of literature, the essence of Kafka and the interpretation and translation of his work. This may not be for everyone but if you have read some of Kafka's work and literature is your thing, you will enjoy this, especially since it is well written.

[Jen Burrows · Rating 4 out of 5]

True to its title, Kafkaesque isn't bound by the conventions of biography: instead, Hruska offers a really thoughtful and unusual take on the life and work of Kafka through the stories of ten of his translators.

Each translator brings out a different version of Kafka - not just in language, but in mood and meaning - influenced by their own lives and cultures. Translation is ultimately the art of metamorphosis between languages, and Hruska gets under the skin of how a text can shift depending on who's carrying it.

Kafkaesque is an intelligent read, as labyrinthine and illuminating as its namesake, full of insight into twentieth-century history and the art of translation.

*Thank you to Netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review*

[Richard Odier · Rating 5 out of 5]

« Vialatte comprit ce jour que si Kafka se sentait à ce point coupable de tout, c'est qu'il avait entrevu l'époque où plus personne ne se sentirait plus coupable de rien »

Très beau livre sur 10 traducteurs au destin croisé avec Kafka
Une magnifique plume

[Daniel Comiza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un essaie très élabore, très documenté, beaucoup d’informations sur l’époque de Kafka et de celle de ses premières traducteurs/rices.

[Stacy McRae · Rating 5 out of 5]

This thought-provoking book was difficult to put down. Though I’m not a Kafka expert, I loved the intermingling of history and philosophy. It’s a great read for anyone.

[Sophia Nordling · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super interested especially if you’re interested in literature, history, and the power of translation and the politics of it and how state power fears this power

[MLD · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting to have gone to Prague and visited his gravesite. This audiobook gave some insight to his life during very turbulent times. 3.5 stars

[Hélène · Rating 4 out of 5]

Après la mort de Kafka, tant les Nazis que les Bolchéviques mirent ses oeuvres à l'index. Paradoxalement, il ne survécut pendant ces premières années que par des traductions.
Ce n'est ni par hasard ni sur commande que l'on devient l'un des premiers traducteurs de Kafka. L'entreprise s'impose comme un impératif radical et urgent.
Les similitudes entre le destin de Kafka, de ses personnages et de ses traducteurs sont nombreuses, emmêlées et déroutantes. Ils sont parvenus à être fidèles à la fois à Kafka et à eux-mêmes. Chacun a réverbéré Kafka dans ses oeuvres à sa façon et, en même temps, s'y est projeté.
Une notion fondamentale pour comprendre Kafka, la notion de pokoï (mot tchèque). le mot "désigne aussi bien la chambre (spatiale, résidentielle) qu'une forme de tranquillité, de quiétude, de paix (psychique). le pokoï est une topographie autant qu'une utopie".
Les traducteurs avaient ceci de commun avec les personnages de Kafka d'avoir un jour été arrachés à l'espace qui nourrissait le rapport à leur langue et à autrui, leur pokoï.
L'autrice met en résonnance l'oeuvre de Kafka avec celle de ses traducteurs ou avec leur vie et leur mort. Par la même occasion, elle éclaire l'oeuvre de Kafka et sa réception.

[Selena · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’d describe Kafkaesque as a collection of essays, building on each other, some centred around a particular translator. Some of the translators were writers I was aware of - Jorge Luis Borges, Primo Levi - others I’d never heard of. In parts, it's about Kafka and his work, but against the backdrop of those who translated him, and the context of their lives. Some themes run throughout, including persecution and incarceration, as well as the definition of pokoj (a Slavic word). The latter is referred to time and again - “Pokoj means both a room (spatial, residential) and a form of tranquillity or peace (psychological).” For both Kafka and his translators, language could be a pokoj. (The nature of pokoj could be a book on its own - how to build your own, physical or otherwise, celebrities and their pokoj ;) But at the heart is the power of language and translation. One of the most powerful moments in the book for me was the role of language in the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, where translation between German and Hebrew became a barrier, and it was the ability of Jewish German-speaking judges to take back control of the German language from Nazism. Also, the section about the Czech journalist and writer Milena Jesenská, where translation comes from an act of love, is rather beautiful.

I don’t think I got as much out of this as others might. The jumps between Kafka’s life and that of a particular translator, as well as the frequent appearances of other characters and events, broke things up too much for me; I probably needed a simpler biography to start. However, the feel of Kafkaesque reminded me a bit of the Baillie Gifford Prize-winning Question 7, with its intertwining themes, ideas, and specific events. For anyone interested in writing, language, translation, history, and Kafka (obviously), this is worth a look.

Many thanks to the publisher for the proof copy.

[CB_Read · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review is out now (for free) on the Chicago Review of Books!

https://chireviewofbooks.com/2026/05/...