懲罰 卡夫卡自選集：判決、變形記、在流刑地

by Franz Kafka, 法蘭茲·卡夫卡, 彤雅立 (Translator)

●〈判決〉
「你本是個無辜的孩子，更原本卻是個惡魔！所以你聽著——我判你現在投河而死。」

●〈變形記〉　　
某日早晨，古瑞格．參薩自不安的夢境中醒來，發現自己在床上，蛻變成一隻陰森巨大的害蟲。

●〈在流刑地〉　
這位士兵由於不服從命令，且侮辱長官，因而被判了死刑。在流刑地，這項處決似乎引不起人們多大的興趣。

「我的心願原本是出版一部規模較大的中篇小說集，選集的共同書名為《懲罰》。」──法蘭茲．卡夫卡，〈致庫爾特．沃夫出版社〉（1915年10月15日）

一九一三年起，卡夫卡即有出版中短篇選集的想法，自稱「珍視這三個故事作為統一的整體，絕不亞於對其中一則故事完整性的重視」，並一度獲出版社支持，後因市場考量始終未能問世，原本計畫收錄的〈判決〉、〈變形記〉、〈在流刑地〉則分別以單集形式出版。

在這三篇卡夫卡最具代表性的中短篇作品裡，可見一個人如何與象徵「家」的權威對抗，最終招致毀滅。本選集另節選卡夫卡與出版社、情人菲莉絲．包爾的通信，以及日記內容，帶讀者一窺這位偉大作家如何淬鍊筆下的荒誕世界。

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1914

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 His major novels The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika were left unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime.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.