A Hunger-Artist

by Franz Kafka

144 pages, Paperback

Published April 17, 2025

About the author

Prague-born writer Franz Kafka wrote in German, and his stories, such as " The Metamorphosis " (1916), and posthumously published novels, including The Trial (1925), concern troubled individuals in a nightmarishly impersonal world.

Jewish middle-class family of this major fiction writer of the 20th century spoke German. People consider his unique body of much incomplete writing, mainly published posthumously, among the most influential in European literature.

His stories include "The Metamorphosis" (1912) and " In the Penal Colony " (1914), whereas his posthumous novels include The Trial (1925), The Castle (1926) and Amerika (1927).

Despite first language, Kafka also spoke fluent Czech. Later, Kafka acquired some knowledge of the French language and culture from Flaubert, one of his favorite authors.

Kafka first studied chemistry at the Charles-Ferdinand University of Prague but after two weeks switched to law. This study offered a range of career possibilities, which pleased his father, and required a longer course of study that gave Kafka time to take classes in German studies and art history. At the university, he joined a student club, named Lese- und Redehalle der Deutschen Studenten, which organized literary events, readings, and other activities. In the end of his first year of studies, he met Max Brod, a close friend of his throughout his life, together with the journalist Felix Weltsch, who also studied law. Kafka obtained the degree of doctor of law on 18 June 1906 and performed an obligatory year of unpaid service as law clerk for the civil and criminal courts.

Writing of Kafka attracted little attention before his death. During his lifetime, he published only a few short stories and never finished any of his novels except the very short "The Metamorphosis." Kafka wrote to Max Brod, his friend and literary executor: "Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me ... in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others'), sketches, and so on, [is] to be burned unread." Brod told Kafka that he intended not to honor these wishes, but Kafka, so knowing, nevertheless consequently gave these directions specifically to Brod, who, so reasoning, overrode these wishes. Brod in fact oversaw the publication of most of work of Kafka in his possession; these works quickly began to attract attention and high critical regard.

Max Brod encountered significant difficulty in compiling notebooks of Kafka into any chronological order as Kafka started writing in the middle of notebooks, from the last towards the first, et cetera.

Kafka wrote all his published works in German except several letters in Czech to Milena Jesenská.

Reviews

[Lucka · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will never get tired of Kafka's writing. I relate to his characters and his stories a bit too much.
Overall, I liked all of the stories, but Josefine, the Singer, or The Mouse People is my favourite one.

"Our lives are restless, every new day brings surprises with it, shocks, hopes and terrors, which the individual couldn't possibly bear, were it not that at all times of day and night he had the support of his comrades; and even so things are hard enough; sometimes a thousand shoulders tremble under a weight that was intended for one."

I haven't been able to stop thinking about this quote since I read it, I don't know why but it's stuck with me.

[Jaron Shulver · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title story "A hunger artist" is very much so the best story in the book, a unique and interesting story about a self starving performance artist who struggles the reach the pinnacle of his craft.

The longest story in the book is The Stoker, which is an unfinished work. This is somewhat harder to read and contains many long run-on sentences but is nevertheless interesting for what it is, albeit closer to "traditional" fiction in tone than other Kafka works.

The other stories are all interesting in their own way although A Little Woman might be seen as problematic for its framing of a woman's dislike of a particular man from the man's point of view only. Although just as much seems to be about the anxiety of being disliked, or obsessing about whether one is disliked (even if this is a potential misreading by the narrator, as it's never explicitly spelled out by the woman in question) - nevertheless strange as in keeping with other stories by Kafka

[Beyza Eda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Hunger-Artist: Four Short-stories= show-stopping, spectacular, best thing I ve ever read. So it sets up quite a high bar for the other two stories. By all means The judgement and The Stoker are good stories, but not on the level of the compilation prior to them.

[Oscar Walsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me when I skip BREAKFAST

[Airam Avitok · Rating 4 out of 5]

This new series of Penguin Archive 2025 first published in Metamorphosis and other stories in Penguin Books 2007.

It consists of A Hunger Artist: Four stories
First Sorrow
A little woman
A hunger artist
Josefine, the singer, or the mouse people,
The Judgement A story for E. and
The Stoker : A Fragment.

This is my fourth Kafka book (Metamorphosis, the Trial, the Castle) and i must say i really enjoyed it.
I found the "Judgement" to have a Poe vibe and was unquestionably my favorite of all short stories in this book.
I also loved the strange "First Sorrow". it was so disturbing yet so true. Reality is indeed disturbing.
As for "the Stoker" it reminded me of the classical "kafka" circumstances and reminded me to continue with this writer and get to read all his other books i haven't read yet.
Beautiful cover and nice quality of paper.