In her new translation of Kafka's masterpiece, Susan Bernofsky strives to capture both the humor and the humanity in this macabre tale, underscoring the ways in which Gregor Samsa's grotesque metamorphosis is just the physical manifestation of his longstanding spiritual impoverishment.
This welcome new edition of The Metamorphosis was translated by Susan Bernofsky in a smoother, less Germanic, more contemporary voice than the Muir version most Anglophone readers remember from school, and is introduced by the master of biological horror, director David Cronenberg. - Andrew Hultkrans
Susan Bernofsky's new, exacting translation shows just how ingenious the structure of [Metamorphosis] is, and just how difficult it is to render Kafka's German into English. She succeeds brilliantly, however, with a vivid fidelity to Kafka's vision, driving home the way he makes us at once sympathetic to his anti-hero, Gregor Samsa, and repulsed by him. -Arlice Davenport"
"Kafka's survey of the insectile situation of young Jews in inner Bohemia can hardly be improved upon: 'With their posterior legs they were still glued to their father's Jewishness and with their wavering anterior legs they found no new ground.' There is a sense in which Kafka's Jewish question ('What have I in common with Jews?') has become everybody's question, Jewish alienation the template for all our doubts. What is Muslimness? What is femaleness? What is Polishness? These days we all find our anterior legs flailing before us. We're all insects, all "Ungeziefer, "now."
- Zadie Smith
Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. His major novels include The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika.
Introduction by David Cronenberg
W.W. Norton & Company
Pub Date: January 20, 2014
0.4" H x 8.1" L x 5.4" W
126 pages
paperback