The Sons (23 page)

My answer to this is that, after all, this whole rejoinder—which can partly also be turned against you—does not come from you, but from me. Not even your mistrust of others is as great as my self-mistrust, which you have bred in me. I do not deny a certain justification for this rejoinder, which in itself contributes new material to the characterization of our relationship. Naturally things cannot in reality fit together the way the evidence does in my letter; life is more than a Chinese puzzle. But with the correction made by this rejoinder—a correction I neither can nor will elaborate in detail—in my opinion something has been achieved which so closely approximates the truth that it might reassure us both a little and make our living and our dying easier.

F
RANZ

AMERIKA

a new translation by Mark Harman, based on the restored text

Kafka’s first and funniest novel tells the story of the young immigrant Karl Rossmann who, “packed off to America” by his parents, finds himself caught up in a whirlwind of dizzying reversals, strange escapades, and picaresque adventures.

“Almost ninety years after his death, Kafka continues to defy simplifications, to force us to consider him anew. That’s the effect of Mark Harman’s new translation.” —
Los Angeles Times

THE CASTLE

a new translation by Mark Harman, based on the restored text

This haunting tale of a man known only as K. and his endless struggle against an inscrutable authority to gain admittance to a castle is often cited as Kafka’s most autobiographical work.

“Will be
the
translation of preference for some time to come.”

—J. M. Coetzee,
The New York Review of Books

THE COMPLETE STORIES

edited by Nahum N. Glatzer, with a foreword by John Updike

All of Kafka’s stories are collected here in one comprehensive volume; with the exception of the three novels, the whole of his narrative work is included.

“The Complete Stories
is an encyclopedia of our insecurities and our brave attempts to oppose them.”

—Anatole Broyard

DIARIES, 1910–1923

edited by Max Brod

For the first time in this country, the complete diaries of Franz Kafka are available in one volume. Covering the period from 1910 to 1923, the year before Kafka’s death, they reveal the essential Kafka behind the enigmatic artist.

“It is likely that these journals will be regarded as one of [Kafka’s] major literary works; in these pages, he reveals what he customarily hid from the world.”

—
The New Yorker

THE METAMORPHOSIS AND OTHER STORIES

translated by Willa and Edwin Muir

This powerful collection brings together all the stories Franz Kafka published during his lifetime, including “The Judgment,” “The Metamorphosis,” “In the Penal Colony,” “A Country Doctor,” and “A Hunger Artist.”

“Kafka’s survey of the insectile situation of young Jews in inner Bohemia can hardly be improved upon. There is a sense in which Kafka’s Jewish question has become everybody’s question, Jewish alienation the template for all our doubts. These days we all find our anterior legs flailing before us. We’re all insects, all
Ungeziefer
, now.”

—Zadie Smith

THE SONS

translations revised and updated by Arthur Wensinger, with an introduction by Mark Anderson

Franz Kafka’s three classic stories of filial revolt—“The Metamorphosis,” “The Judgment,” and “The Stoker”—grouped together with his own poignant “Letter to His Father,” take on fresh, compelling meaning.

“Kafka is the author who comes nearest to bearing the same kind of relationship to our age as Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe bore to theirs.”

—W. H. Auden

THE TRIAL

a new translation by Breon Mitchell, based on the restored text

The terrifying story of Joseph K., his arrest and trial, is one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.

“Mitchell’s translation is an accomplishment of the highest order—one that will honor Kafka far into the twenty-first century.”

—Walter Abish, author of
How German Is It