Franz Kafka

The complete novels of one of the greatest German writers of all time, collected together in one literary masterpiece. Kafka's characters are victims of forces beyond their control, estranged and rootless citizens deceived by authoritarian power. Filled with claustrophobic description and existential profundity, Kafka has been compared to a literary Woody Allen. In The TrialJoseph K is relentlessly hunted for a crime that remains nameless. The Castlefollows K in his ceaseless attempts to enter the castle and to belong somewhere. In AmerikaKarl Rossmann also finds himself isolated and confused when he is 'packed off to America by his parents'. Here, ordinary immigrants are also strange, and 'America' is never quite as real as it seems. THE CLASSIC TRANSLATION BY WILLA AND EDWIN MUIR

The Complete Novels

Die Verwandlung

Elina Berzina

Franzi

raia – inactive

He was already on the verge of forgetting, and only his mother’s voice, which he had gone so long now without hearing, had shaken him awake.

Luca Stromann

[…] denn ihn hätte man doch in einer passenden Kiste mit ein paar Luftlöchern leicht transportieren können;

Anfangs rief sie ihn auch zu sich herbei, mit Worten, die sie wahrscheinlich für freundlich hielt, wie »Komm mal herüber, alter Mistkäfer!« oder »Seht mal den alten Mistkäfer!«

tuna

The previous morning while the doors were locked everyone had wanted to get in there to him, but now, now that he had opened up one of the doors and the other had clearly been unlocked some time during the day, no-one came, and the keys were in the other sides.

They had been good times and they had never come again, at least not with the same splendour

With a certain definitiveness he sensed, terrified, that everything was about to collapse all around him, and so he waited. 

Oriana andrade

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.

Alison Deaner

It occurred to him how simple everything would be if somebody came to help him.

The Complete Novels quotes

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