A Spectator Best Book of the Year

An excellent new translation of Kafka's classic stories, analyzed with authenticity and accompanied by beautiful illustrations. Selected Stories offers new, exceptional renditions of short works from one of the undisputed masters of the form. Award-winning translator and scholar Mark Harman provides the most sensitive English rendering to date of Franz Kafka’s unique German prose—restrained, witty, full of ambiguities and double meanings.

With his extensive biographical introduction and notes that illuminate the stories and place them in context, Harman brings new life to masterpieces that are often misunderstood. Sixteen stories are included, arranged chronologically to convey Kafka’s artistic development. Some, like "The Trial," "In the Penal Colony," "A Hunger Artist," and "The Metamorphosis," represent the pinnacle of Kafka’s artistry.

The accompanying notes highlight the playful words and cultural references of the original German language, filled with irony and humor often overlooked by English-speaking readers. Despite being often portrayed as solitary, Harman draws on his diaries, extensive correspondence, and engagement with the early twentieth-century discussions on Darwinism, psychoanalysis, and Zionism to compose a rich portrait of Kafka in his world.

A work of art but also study, Selected Stories transforms our understanding and appreciation of a unique imagination.

Pages: 304, Year of Publication: 0909, Dimensions: 14x14cm