The bank employee Josef K. is arrested one morning without knowing why he is being accused. He embarks on a dead-end struggle to prove his innocence, while simultaneously trying to uncover what lies behind this enigmatic charge. However, he encounters insurmountable difficulties everywhere and is unable to reach any logical conclusion.

The judges remain unseen, the court officials provide vague explanations, and everything that unfolds in court is incomprehensible. Every attempt to prove his innocence falls flat. Gradually, the noose of guilt weighing on him becomes suffocating, and he gets lost in the labyrinth of a world where the prolonged ambiguity of the absurd overwhelms him.

Written in 1914, The Trial is one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. The story of Josef K. can be read as a search for the meaning of human existence, an allegory that expresses the anxiety and alienation of the modern man, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy and the absurdity of totalitarian regimes.