Kafkaesque: Ten Great Writers Translate the Twentieth Century

by Maïa Hruska

What happens to a writer's work when it's translated – specifically, what happens if his name is Franz Kafka?

After Kafka died young and unknown, a German-speaking Jew in Prague, ten writers rescued him from oblivion. For years, long before he became a much misused adjective, Kafka existed mostly through their wildly different readings of his words.

Many of his first translators would later be counted among the greatest thinkers and writers of the twentieth century – and they all found in Kafka’s writing a guiding light through the dark of their own tumultuous lives. Primo Levi translated Kafka into Italian from the German he had learned in Auschwitz; Milena Jesenská lovingly into Czech before she too was deported to the camps; Bruno Schulz into Polish before being shot by an SS officer; and Jorge Luis Borges into Spanish as he slowly went blind. Vladimir Nabokov annotated The Metamorphosis in exile, having undergone his own transformation from native to foreigner, while Kafka’s translators back in Russia were condemned to perpetual anonymity by the Soviet censor.

With inventiveness, spirit and wit, Maïa Hruska has written a celebration of the impossible art of translation, and a portrait of the tragic, absurd twentieth century that Kafka so presciently described.

Genres: Nonfiction, Audiobook, History, Books About Books

272 pages, Hardcover

Published April 9, 2026

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.

[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.

[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.

[James Klagge · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sort of picaresque journey among a variety of people who translated Kafka. There are a number of interesting things along the journey, but no real unifying theme. What I missed in particular was any analysis and comparison of their translations. In fact almost nothing was said about the translations themselves. There is a sort of abstract discussion of translations as somehow unifying the languages. This makes some sense, but there is also much to be said for the disunity of languages and the sometimes impossibility of translation. This was made apparent when I helped as an English editor for a translation by Zenny Sadlon of Books 2-4 of The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Svejk During the World War, Book Two from Czech to English. I wrote the following for an Afterword that was never printed:

“We set ourselves the task of rendering Hašek’s account of Švejk’s adventures into English. Most Czechs will tell you that is impossible.
Most translations—“good” translations—read as though they were written in the language that is being read. If you didn’t already know it was a translation, you wouldn’t be able to tell by reading it. But this was not our vision. This most “Czech” of novels can’t be translated—in this way—because too much of its Czechness would be lost along the way. That’s why Czechs think it can’t be translated.
Zenny would put it into “English” and my job was to tell him it wasn’t English. I told him how to put it into English, and he told me that wasn’t what the Czech meant. And so it went. No doubt some of its Czechness has been lost. But some has been preserved—not just the content, but a sense of the language.
The value of this approach was well-expressed by Rudolf Pannwitz, in Die Krisis der europaischen Kultur, 1917 (quoted by Walter Benjamin in “The Task of the Translator” [in fact our author quotes from this piece on pp. 187ff], an introduction to a Baudelaire translation, 1923; this text translated into English by Harry Zohn, 1968):
'Our translations, even the best ones, proceed from a wrong premise. They want to turn Hindi, Greek, English into German instead of turning German into Hindi, Greek, English. Our translators have a far greater reverence for the usage of their own language than for the spirit of the foreign works.... The basic error of the translator is that he preserves the state in which his own language happens to be instead of allowing his language to be powerfully affected by the foreign tongue. Particularly when translating from a language very remote from his own he must go back to the primal elements of language itself and penetrate to the point where work, image, and tone converge. He must expand and deepen his language by means of the foreign language. It is not generally realized to what extent this is possible, to what extent any language can be transformed, how language differs from language almost the way dialect differs from dialect; however, this last is true only if one takes language seriously enough, not if one takes it lightly.'
We have tried to take Czech seriously. The cost is a certain smoothness that the reader expects; the benefit is a broadening in our acquaintance with a “foreign tongue”.
A customer reviewer on Amazon.com of the first edition of the first book of this translation wrote:
When I saw this new translation of Švejk in a bookstore I immediately bought it. I love the novel and I have always thought that the Cecil Parrott translation, although good, wasn't quite “it”. The problem with Parrott’s translation is that it is a little too formal compared to the Czech original (incidentally, I’m fluent in Czech, so I know what the prose should feel like). This new Sadlon translation promised to remedy this situation, so optimistically I plowed right in, hoping for the best. Unfortunately, although the language has been (appropriately) “roughed up” a bit, the prose has suffered. Hašek’s prose flows. It feels “right”; it doesn’t jar. Unfortunately, Sadlon’s translation at times does. Parrott’s prose is, I think, closer to the original in its feel, while Sadlon’s vocabulary is closer to the original. Blending the two, I suppose, might be the answer.
Here, we see, is a dilemma: Hašek’s prose flows, but Czech and English are very different languages. If we render it into English that flows, we lose some of its Czechness; if we preserve its Czechness, it doesn’t flow in English—it jars. The reviewer hopes for a “blending of the two,” but that is easier said than done.
This, at any rate, is the best we could do. Some may think we have massacred the English, but at least we haven’t euthanized the Czech.”

It would have been interesting for the author to look at some of these kinds of issues to see how the translators handled them. Oh well...

[Justine Kaufmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kafkaesque is in some ways less a book about Franz Kafka and more a word about his early translators, famous writers and thinkers such as Borges, Paul Celan, Primo Levi, and, of course, Milena Jesenská. The book centers on the idea that ‘our reading of [Kafka’s work] inevitably owes something to those who read it first’ as well as the fates that several of these first translators met that eerily resemble those of Kafka and his own characters.

It was a book I enjoyed, certain sections, quotes, and connections between writers and figures, but the overall points the book tried to make felt scattered disjointed, and frankly somewhat shallow. A book that touches on translation but doesn’t really dig into the translations themselves. So while I do recommend it, especially if you are looking for an easier non-fiction read for Women in Translation Month, I would not come to it with the highest of expectations.

3.5*

Quotes:
‘Borges constructed his work like a hall of mirrors: not the one in Versailles, but the kind that you can find at any travelling fair. It is here, in a maze of mirrors—where man moves from one perplexity to the next, with the unpleasant sensation that he is going around in circles—that the Borgesian and Kafkaesque universes intertwine.'

'Kafka and Borges were both incapable of tolerating the outside world as it was, with all its inescapable flaws. Literature was their only source of tranquility, their only habitable space; the only space in which they could find their way.'

'Kafka blushed at the idea of making a mistake in German that might betray him as a foreigner in the eyes of his judges—his readers… Celan took the opposite approach. He composed his poems with the impudence of a man who has nothing left to lose. He promised to ‘Jewishise’ the German language.. his poetry did not aim to accompany the horror but to reproduce the moans of the dying… ‘I write from within the language of death itself’.'

Primo Levi on his translation of The Trial in 1983:
‘I felt attacked by this book. [….] It pierced me like an arrow, like a spear.’ The process of translating Kafka led Levi to understand his initial hostility towards the author’s work. This hostility was not literary or aesthetic in nature, but physical. He felt threatened by Kafka as by a ‘[….] like the prophet who tells you the day you will die.’

'[Alexandre] Vialette envied Kafka his gift for transforming the ‘mildest personal problem’ into a ‘parable of the human condition’. '

‘Walter Benjamin, articulated, albeit somewhat nebulously, in his short treatise “The Task of the Translator’, published in 1923: ‘It is the task of the translator to release in his own language that pure language which is exiled among alien tongues, to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in his re-creation of that work.’ One must read the letters to understand the lengths to which Milena went in her attempts to liberate Kafka from the torments that made him both an exile and a prisoner of Prague, his family, his illness, his ‘burrow’.

[Venneh · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book that takes a look at Kafka's translators, and their similarities and differences to Kafka's own circumstances. Gets into the nuances of translation and language, which is always fun. Interesting read.

[Mansoor · Rating 4 out of 5]

ترجمه‌ای خوشخوان و شورانگیز

[Leane · Rating 5 out of 5]

"L'Histoire ne se manifeste pas toujours par défilé triomphal de tanks. Un seul engin de terrassement, retournant un cimetière pour égaliser le sol, suffit"

[George · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pop literary criticism surrounding Kafka’s translation through the beginning of his fame.

Found the writer’s voice and writing pretty basic and bland.

It also seemed far too distracted by elements outside of Kafka which I wouldn’t say were necessary to the topic.

[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!

[Theediscerning · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book that could just about tip itself over from writing about the philosophy of translation and of course of Kafka, and reach the general readership – but whose subjects probably wouldn't allow it. We start with the reluctance of the Soviets to translate – even acknowledge – the man, and this allows this author to spin off into discussing the concept of the 'pokoj' – the empty, blank and silent space that Kafka would have needed to write and to work on his literature, that proved he was also fairly curmudgeonly but also not able to belong to anyone or anything or any group of thought. He could not be loved by the Soviets because he could never be a communist, any more than he could be anything. The pokoj stays with us throughout this.

The next chapter kind of ignores the translators, but for telling us something of the man to first present Kafka in English, but shows us just what he meant to a certain brand of intellectual kicked out of Europe by Hitler et al and forced to the US. Borges certainly translated Kafka, and their connections and differences are next – there's a lot more of the former than the latter, for the Argentine adored Kafka to the point of emulation.

There are links as well with Paul Celan, with whom this author can observe many European happenings of the middle of the last century – ending in the near-extinction of Yiddish, the next chapter's language. The same happenings are clearly there too when Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi translates Kafka, most reluctantly, it seems.

Vialatte dies about as well-known as Kafka was upon his untimely passing; Bruno Schultz left a legacy that, like Kafka's, was the subject of claim and counter-claim by different countries; we get a lot about the formation of Israel due to the Hebrew language; and close with a fraught relationship with a married woman Kafka had, which proved a key slice of his life as she translated him into Czech.

So, yes, as a book about Mitteleuropean literature it is probably the best I've read since leaving uni all those years and years ago, and as a text about translation it ranks alongside anything the likes of Adair, Tim Parks and that-bloke-I-forget ever did. As a piece on Kafka it loves to find ways to write around the topic, without constantly aiming at it directly. It can also dip quite enthusiastically into not-really-needed metaphor on occasion, not fully called-for for being quite clear the first time, without.

So while I enjoyed it, I still have a major doubt that the contents would transfer to the average commuter on the average bus. It is readable, it has a cogent and sensible aim that it achieves, and it taught me lots. I'm glad it's out there – but I suspect the audience who would think likewise is rather on the small side.

[Jessica Sandman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley, Maïa Hruska, Ecco, and HarperAudio Adult for the audiobook to review!

I should start off this review by saying that I don't usually listen to audiobooks, but I felt that the subject matter here was too aligned with my interests both inside and outside of the classroom to pass up the opportunity to give this a try.

I am a huge Kafka fan. I know that sometimes his work is seen as divisive for some readers, but when I first read The Metamorphosis, I took a deep dive into his biography, as well as his other writing. He is often seen as a key figure for those who have felt alienated, whether from their society, their family, or even their own life. This book is masterful at showcasing the ways that a variety of different authors felt when they had their first exposure to Kafka, and the reasons that they felt the urge to translate his work into their own languages.

I thought it was particularly interesting to see which of his stories got translated first into various languages. Factors such as time period and political climate influenced which would be the most beneficial (or acceptable) to the masses.

There are a number of the translators showcased in the book whom I am already a fan of, like Jorge Luis Borges and Vladimir Nabokov, but there were some that I was not quite as familiar with. This book has encouraged me to see those authors out further.

As I mentioned previously, I'm not usually someone who listens to audiobooks, so I would really be interested in reading this book again in the future in a more visual way. I think it would be worth having in my collection, and I will likely seek out a hardcover copy.

Excellent book on identity, language, culture, and alienation.

[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.

[Relena_reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm an absolute sucker for a book that takes a very niche idea and uses it to explode a philosophical idea. How does our brain use language? How does translation change the subject, the object, the translator, and the audience? How does a nation choose who it is through its approach to language?

Kafka is frequently liminal in his storytelling, but as a German-speaking Czech Jew, he was also a liminal person within his own linguistic space and Hruska uses this central in-betweenness to connect him to his interlocutors who introduced his ideas to the rest of the world and the ways in which their cultures and, frequently, diasporic nature interacted.

Hruska works closer to Kafka's home over the course of the work, till in her last chapter she finds herself meeting a housekeeper who dusted the public displays of Kafka's writing, and gaining steam with each step closer to the apparition of Kafka who still exists.

I'm going to be buying a copy of this for our teachers who teach Kafka each year because this is extra-fascinating context.

Many, many thanks to NetGalley for this audioARC.

[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*

[⋆ ☾ mia ❀ ⋆ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kafkaesque offers an engaging and original perspective on Franz Kafka by focusing on the translators who carried his work into new languages. I really liked this approach because it highlights how much influence translators have on shaping an author’s legacy and how meaning shifts depending on who is interpreting the text. Maïa Hruska blends literary history with thoughtful discussions about language, culture, and interpretation, creating a book that feels both insightful and accessible.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance listening copy.

[mari · Rating 3 out of 5]

This could’ve been so interesting!! Instead it was scattered and shallow and frustrating to see the author spend more time exploring every passing thought she had than actually writing on the subject(s) she was meant to explore.

The bits actually about translation and Kafka and the translators were interesting and saved the overall experience, but the author’s lack of focus and created a lot of unnecessary and distracting noise.

[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

[Sabrina AD · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read several books about Kafka that act quite derisively towards Kafka fans, this book is a breath of fresh air, someone who seems to enjoy him and his work and enjoys that other people love him and see him as a friend too.

[Izas]

Contra todo pronóstico, lo he abandonado a la mitad.
Tenía muchísimas ganas de leer este libro, pero me lo esperaba enfocado de otra manera.
Me ha parecido muy denso, a pesar de tener 200 páginas… con demasiado dato historico. No es para mi.

[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