Kafka:A Guide for the Perplexed

<div>Franz Kafka is one of the most widely taught, and read, writers in world literature. Readers encountering texts like 'The Metamorphosis' and <em>The Trial</em> for the first time are frequently perplexed by his often intentionally weird writing. Some might say that Kafka's enduring achievement has been to make his readers love being perplexed. As much of Kafka's writing is designed to perplex the reader, this guide helps the reader understand why and how perplexity has been deliberately created by Kafka's text and to realize what the uses of such perplexity might be. The book guides readers through their first encounters with Kafka and introduces the problems involved in reading his texts, the nature of his texts from the key novels and novellas to letters and professional writings, his life as a writer and different approaches to reading Kafka. </div>>

Clayton Koelb is the Guy B. Johnson Professor of German and Comparative Literature and Chair of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA.