Kafka: A Very Short Introduction

Attending both to Kafka's crisis-ridden life and to the subtleties of his art, Kafka: A Very Short Introduction shows how his work explores such characteristically modern themes as the place of the body in culture, the power of institutions over people, and the possibility of religion after Nietzsche had proclaimed ‘the death of God’. Kafka is among the most intriguing and influential writers of the 20th century. During his lifetime he worked as a civil servant and published only a few short stories. All three of his novels, The Trial, The Castle, and The Man Who Disappeared [Amerika], were published after his death and helped to found Kafka's reputation as a uniquely perceptive interpreter of the 20th century.