The Trial by Franz Kafka Annotated Edition

Franz Kafka's 1925 novel The Trial is about Josef K., a banker who is prosecuted by a court he has never heard of for a crime that is never revealed. Although K. attempts to fight the illogical accusation, the perplexing legal system steadily wears him down. The novel ends with K.'s abrupt execution, when two men hired by the court twist a knife into K.'s heart. Published one year after Kafka's death, The Trial is one of Kafka's best-known and most characteristic works, as it is emblematic of the author's signature narrative premise of a solitary man futilely trying to find his way out of an absurd, nightmarish, and darkly comic predicament.