Metamorphosis, In The Penal Colony & Other Stories ( Schocken Kafka Library )
From one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, the author of The Metamorphosis and The Trial: A collection that brings together the stories he allowed to be published during his lifetime, including his best-known tale of a man who wakes up transformed into an insect.
To Max Brod, his literary executor, Kafka wrote: āOf all my writings the only books that can stand are these.ā
āKafkaās survey of the insectile situation of young Jews in inner Bohemia can hardly be improved upon: āWith their posterior legs they were still glued to their fatherās Jewishness and with their wavering anterior legs they found no new ground.ā There is a sense in which Kafkaās Jewish question (āWhat have I in common with Jews?ā) has become everybodyās question, Jewish alienation the template for all our doubts. What is Muslimness? What is femaleness? What is Polishness? These days we all find our anterior legs flailing before us. Weāre all insects, all Ungeziefer, now.ā āZadie Smith, bestselling author of White Teeth and On Beauty