A collection of brand-new short stories written by prize-winning, bestselling writers and inspired by Kafka – published to commemorate the centenary of his death
*Chosen as a 2024 highlight in the Guardian, the Financial Times, the Daily Mail, New Statesman, Esquire and the New European*
Franz Kafka is widely regarded as one of the great geniuses of twentieth-century literature. What happens when some of the most original literary minds of today take an idea, a mood or a line from his work and use it to spark something new?
From a future society who ask their AI servants to construct a giant tower to reach God; to a flat hunt that descends into a comically absurd bureaucratic nightmare; to a population experiencing a wave of unbearable, contagious panic attacks, these ten specially commissioned stories are by turns mind-bending, funny, unsettling and haunting. Inspired by the visionary imagination of a writer working one hundred years ago, they speak powerfully to the strangeness of being alive today.
*Chosen as a 2024 highlight in the Guardian, the Financial Times, the Daily Mail, New Statesman, Esquire and the New European*
Franz Kafka is widely regarded as one of the great geniuses of twentieth-century literature. What happens when some of the most original literary minds of today take an idea, a mood or a line from his work and use it to spark something new?
From a future society who ask their AI servants to construct a giant tower to reach God; to a flat hunt that descends into a comically absurd bureaucratic nightmare; to a population experiencing a wave of unbearable, contagious panic attacks, these ten specially commissioned stories are by turns mind-bending, funny, unsettling and haunting. Inspired by the visionary imagination of a writer working one hundred years ago, they speak powerfully to the strangeness of being alive today.
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Reviews
A glorious new collection of short stories inspired by the angst-ridden absurdism of the Czech writer
Offer narratives of baffling circumscriptions, illnesses, miscommunications, and technologies. But the stories also make space for potentiality, with characters witnessing change or glimpsing future possibilities - putting Kafka's turn-of-the-century disillusionment into conversation with our own
Eerie, darkly comic, vertiginously varied ... a refreshing range of responses to the absurdist nature of modern life
A boon for Kafkaheads everywhere
This collection is quite the achievement ... both ridiculous and brilliant. Thank goodness it exists. Kafka himself would love it
A kaleidoscope of Kafkaesque tales woven by a brilliant and diverse array of renowned and talented authors ... Readers are treated to a rich tapestry of narratives, each as captivating as it is thought-provoking
This inspired anthology demonstrates the enduring influence of Franz Kafka's fatalistic worldview and mordant humour ... These stories will do the trick for the Kafka-curious and diehard fans alike
Mind-bending and consistently enjoyable ... A Cage Went in Search of a Bird is a roller coaster ride that will delight the adventuresome reader ... It's easy to imagine Kafka paging through these varied and deeply imagined tales and nodding in admiration
Unsettling and uneasy ... brimful of the dark claustrophobia that made Kafka's work so startling and suffocating