The Trial - Couverture souple

Kafka, Franz

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0749399554 ISBN 13 : 9780749399559

Editeur : Minerva, 1992

Synopsis

The story of Joseph K., a respectable clerk in a bank, who is suddenly arrested and asked to defend himself against a criminal charge which is never defined.

A propos du livre

Biographie de l'auteur

Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-language writer of novels and short stories who is widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work, which fuses elements of realism and the fantastic, typically features isolated protagonists faced by bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible social-bureaucratic powers, and has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity. His best known works include "Die Verwandlung" ("The Metamorphosis"), Der Process (The Trial), and Das Schloss (The Castle). The term Kafkaesque has entered the English language to describe situations like those in his writing. Kafka was born into a middle-class, German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He trained as a lawyer, and after completing his legal education he was employed with an insurance company, forcing him to relegate writing to his spare time. Over the course of his life, Kafka wrote hundreds of letters to family and close friends, including his father, with whom he had a strained and formal relationship. He became engaged to several women but never married. He died in 1924 at the age of 40 from tuberculosis. Few of Kafka's works were published during his lifetime: the story collections Betrachtung (Contemplation) and Ein Landarzt (A Country Doctor), and individual stories (such as "Die Verwandlung") were published in literary magazines but received little public attention. Kafka's unfinished works, including his novels Der Process, Das Schloss and Amerika (also known as Der Verschollene, The Man Who Disappeared), were ordered by Kafka to be destroyed by his friend Max Brod, who nonetheless ignored his friend's direction and published them after Kafka's death. His work went on to influence a vast range of writers, critics, artists, and philosophers during the 20th century.

Quatrième de couverture

'It is the fate and perhaps the greatness of this work that it offers everything and confirms nothing'

The terrifying tale of Joseph K, a respectable functionary in a bank, who is suddenly arrested and must defend his innocence against a charge about which he can get no information. A nightmare vision of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the mad agendas of twentieth-century totalitarian regimes.

'No other voice has borne truer witness ot the dark of our times' George Steiner

See also: Metamorphosis

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Minerva
• Date d'édition: 1992
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0749399554
• ISBN 13: 9780749399559
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 256
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Label emmaus; 766798695; librairie.solidaire@label-emmaus.co; ; labelemmaus; 74 rue paul vaillant couturier; noisy le sec; 93130; France