Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories

From one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, the author of The Metamorphosis and The Trial A collection that brings together the stories he allowed to be published during his lifetime, including his best-known tale of a man who wakes up transformed into an insect.

• To Max Brod, his literary executor, Kafka wrote: Of all my writings the only books that can stand are these.
• Kafkas survey of the insectile situation of young Jews in inner Bohemia can hardly be improved upon: With their posterior legs they were still glued to their fathers Jewishness and with their wavering anterior legs they found no new ground. There is a sense in which Kafkas Jewish question (What have I in common with Jews?) has become everybodys question, Jewish alienation the template for all our doubts. What is Muslimness? What is femaleness? What is