"In this new selection and translation, Peter Wortsman mines Franz Kafka's entire opus of short prose--including works published in the author's brief lifetime, posthumously published stories, journals, and letters--for narratives that sound the imaginative depths of the great German-Jewish scribe from Prague. It is the first volume in English to consider his deeply strange, resonantly humane letters and journal entries alongside his classic short fiction and lyrical vignettes "Transformed" is a vivid retranslation of one of Kafka's signature stories, "Die Verwandlung," commonly rendered in English as "The Metamorphosis." Composed of short, black comic parables, fables, fairy tales, and reflections, Konundrums also includes classic stories like "In the Penal Colony," Kafka's prescient foreshadowing of the nightmare of the Twentieth Century, refreshing the writer's mythic storytelling powers for a new generation of readers. Contents: aaaoaWords are Miserable Miners of Meaning aaaoaLetter to Ernst Rowohlt aaaoaReflections aaaoaConcerning Parables aaaoaChildren on the Country Road aaaoaThe Spinning Top aaaoaThe Street-Side Window aaaoaAt Night aaaoaUnhappiness aaaoaClothes Make the Man aaaoaOn the Inability to Write aaaoaFrom Somewhere in the Middle aaaoaI Can Also Laugh aaaoaThe Need to Be Alone aaaoaSo I Sat at My Stately Desk aaaoaA Writer's Quandary aaaoaGive it Up! aaaoaEleven Sons aaaoaParis Outing aaaoaThe Bridge aaaoaThe Trees aaaoaThe Truth About Sancho Pansa aaaoaThe Silence of the Sirens aaaoaPrometheus aaaoaPoseidon aaaoaThe Municipal Coat of Arms aaaoaA Message from the Emperor aaaoaThe Next Village Over aaaoaFirst Sorrow aaaoaThe Hunger Artist aaaoaJosephine, Our Meistersinger, or the Music of Mice aaaoaInvestigations of a Dog aaaoaA Report to an Academy aaaoaA Hybrid aaaoaTransformed aaaoaIn the Penal Colony aaaoaFrom The Burrow aaaoaSelected Aphorisms aaaoaSelected Last Conversation Shreds aaaoaIn the Caves of the Unconscious: K is for Kafka (An Afterword) aaaoaThe Back of Words (A Post Script)"
