Kafka

A sublimely eerie manga adaptation of classic Kafka stories, with a starkly beautiful illustration style - part of Pushkin's second series of Japanese novellas Nine of Franz Kafka's most memorable tales are here given fresh life with dazzling graphic renderings by the brother-and sister manga creators Nishioka Kyodai . With their distinctive, surreal style of illustration, they have reimagined the fantastic, the imperceptible and the bizarre in Kafka's work, creating a hauntingly powerful visual world. These stories of enigmatic figures and uncanny transformations are stripped to their core, offering profound new understandings. Includes The Metamorphosis, A Hunger Artist, In the Penal Colony, A Country Doctor and more.

A sublimely eerie manga adaptation of classic Kafka stories, with a starkly beautiful illustration style - part of Pushkin's second series of Japanese novellas Nine of Franz Kafka's most memorable tales are here given fresh life with dazzling graphic renderings by the brother-and sister manga creators Nishioka Kyodai . With their distinctive, surreal style of illustration, they have reimagined the fantastic, the imperceptible and the bizarre in Kafka's work, creating a hauntingly powerful visual world. These stories of enigmatic figures and uncanny transformations are stripped to their core, offering profound new understandings. Includes The Metamorphosis, A Hunger Artist, In the Penal Colony, A Country Doctor and more.

In this classic of critical thought, Deleuze and Guattari challenge conventional interpretations of Kafka's work. Instead of exploring preexisting categories or literary genres, they propose a concept of "minor literature"—the use of a major language that subverts it from within. Writing as a Jew in Prague, they contend, Kafka made German "take flight on a line of escape" and joyfully became a stranger within it. His work therefore serves as a model for understanding all critical language that must operate within the confines of the dominant language and culture.

In this classic of critical thought, Deleuze and Guattari challenge conventional interpretations of Kafka's work. Instead of exploring preexisting categories or literary genres, they propose a concept of "minor literature"—the use of a major language that subverts it from within. Writing as a Jew in Prague, they contend, Kafka made German "take flight on a line of escape" and joyfully became a stranger within it. His work therefore serves as a model for understanding all critical language that must operate within the confines of the dominant language and culture.

Den stilfærdige jurist og mangeårige medarbejder ved et forsikringsselskab, Franz Kafka, døde i 1924, 40 år gammel. Han havde på det tidspunkt kun offentliggjort enkelte fortællinger, og ikke mange kendte ham. I dag har han status i litteraturhistorien som en af de allerstørste. Biografien afliver en række myter om den eksistentielt trængte digters liv og værk. Og bagved fortællingen om forfatterskabet levendegør Pawel Europas historie før Første Verdenskrig og blotlægger de dybe etniske og politiske modsætninger, som lå bag, da republikken Tjekkoslovakiet fødtes af verdenskrigens kaos. Som tysktalende jøde i Prag tilhørte Franz Kafka en udsat minoritetsgruppe, klemt mellem tjekkiske og tyske nationalister. Ernst Pawels bog om den sky digter, der afslørede alle det 20. århundredes smertefulde og ødelæggende rædsler endnu før noget var sket, er overalt i verden blevet modtaget som et hovedværk i biografigenren, og forfatteren vandt en række priser for den, bl.a. Los Angeles Book Prize.

Franz Kafka died in 1924, when he was not yet forty-one. During his life he published only seven small books, but he left behind three unfinished novels and a mass of stories, reflections and personal writings which were published after his death. His novels in particular, alongside short stories such as The Judgement and The Metamorphosis, have made him one of the most widely read, significant and influential writers of the twentieth century. His writings show an extraordinary ability to speak to the changing concerns of later generations. This collection of essays, illustrated with manuscripts, archival material, postcards and family photographs, not only sets Kafka in the context of his life and times but also shows how his own experiences nourished his imagination. Literal travel in Western Europe enabled him, as his notebooks reveal, to practise descriptive writing. Imaginative travel through reading strengthened his fascination with remote spaces and made him aware of European colonialism. Familiar settings in his fiction become alien and bewildering. When writing about animals, he sought to enter imaginatively into their non-human way of being. This book is a celebration not just of Kafka’s achievements and creativity, but also of how – even 100 years after his death – Kafka continues to inspire new literary, theatrical and cinematic creations around the world.