Metamorphosis

In this, his most famous story, Kafka explores the notions of alienation and human loneliness through extraordinary narrative technique and depth of imagination. Gregor Samsa awakens one morning to find himself transformed into a repulsive bug. Trapped inside this hideous form, his mind remains unchanged—until he sees the shocked reaction of those around him. He begins to question the basis of human love and, indeed, the entire purpose of his existence. But this, it seems, is only the beginning of his ordeal. Franz Kafka was a German-language novelist, one of the most influential of the 20th century, whose works came to be regarded after his death as one of the major achievements of world literature. The term “Kafkaesque” has entered the English language. His body of work—the novels The Trial, The Castle and Amerika, short stories including The Metamorphosis and In the Penal Colony—is now considered among the most original in Western literature. Most of Kafka’s output, much of it unfinished at the time of his death, was published posthumously.