Overview

A superb translation by Michael Hofmann of some of Kafka's most frightening, strange and visionary short fiction After Franz Kafka's death, in perhaps the most important of all acts of literary disobedience, his executor refused to agree to Kafka's wish that his great mass of unpublished fiction be destroyed. This fiction included not only The Castle and The Trial but also the amazingly varied, chilling and ingenious short works collected in The Burrow and Other Stories. These tales, some little more than a page, others much more substantial, are among the greatest works of Central European literature. They vary from the tiny and horrifying 'Little Fable' to the elaborate waking nightmares of 'Building the Great Wall of China' and the title story 'The Burrow', in which an unidentified creature describes its creation of an endlessly elaborate burrow to protect itself from unidentified enemies, but with every trap or tunnel only creating further terrors and uncertainty.

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9780241372593

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Reviews

A superb translation... alerts us to the strangeness of Kafka's world - often funnier or happier than we give it credit for - without using the word Kafkaesque , which should be retired as it now means little more than frustratingly bureaucratic . Kafka's world is richer, and more rewarding than that. -- Nick Lezard * Guardian * Kafka's posthumously published short fiction cry out for a critical exegesis... newly translated by Michael Hofmann, the stories collected in The Burrow mingle dark comedy with a proto-surrealist intent to unsettle...excellent new translations -- Ian Thomson * New Statesman * Hofmann, with his taste for mischief, makes Kafka, often translated in a buttoned-up key, a writer capable of blending old-fashioned literary parlance and contemporary media-speak... the modern touches also emphasise the timelessness of Kafka's themes, the horror of institutions being just one of them. -- Anna Aslanyan * Financial Times *

Hofmann, with his taste for mischief, makes Kafka, often translated in a buttoned-up key, a writer capable of blending old-fashioned literary parlance and contemporary media-speak... the modern touches also emphasise the timelessness of Kafka's themes, the horror of institutions being just one of them. -- Anna Aslanyan * Financial Times * Kafka's posthumously published short fiction cry out for a critical exegesis... newly translated by Michael Hofmann, the stories collected in The Burrow mingle dark comedy with a proto-surrealist intent to unsettle...excellent new translations -- Ian Thomson * New Statesman * A superb translation... alerts us to the strangeness of Kafka's world - often funnier or happier than we give it credit for - without using the word Kafkaesque , which should be retired as it now means little more than frustratingly bureaucratic . Kafka's world is richer, and more rewarding than that. -- Nick Lezard * Guardian *

Author Information

Franz Kafka (Author) Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was born of Jewish parents in Prague. Several of his story collections were published in his lifetime and his novels, The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika, were published posthumously by his editor Max Brod. Michael Hofmann (Translator) Michael Hofmann is a poet and translator from the German. For Penguin he has translated four books by Hans Fallada, in addition to works by Franz Kafka, Ernst J nger, Irmgard Keun and Jakob Wassermann.

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