Franz Kafka Books in Order: Complete Reading Guide

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) was a German-language writer from Prague who published very little during his lifetime and died at forty from tuberculosis. His three major novels were published posthumously from unfinished manuscripts — the incomplete state of each being, as it happens, formally appropriate to their subject matter.

Franz Kafka Major Works

1. The Metamorphosis — 1915

Start here. Gregor Samsa wakes one morning to find he has been transformed into a monstrous vermin. The story proceeds entirely without comment on this fact — the transformation is simply accepted, and the focus is on how his family manages the inconvenience. About 80 pages. The best introduction to Kafka’s method.

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2. The Trial — 1925 (posthumous)

Josef K. is arrested one morning for a crime that is never specified. His attempts to navigate the legal system — to understand the charge, to find his court, to mount a defence — are perpetually frustrated by a bureaucracy that operates in rooms above shop floors and conducts its business in incomprehensible procedures. One of the essential novels of the 20th century.

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3. The Castle — 1926 (posthumous)

K. arrives in a village dominated by a vast, inaccessible castle and attempts to gain access to the authorities who have apparently summoned him as a land surveyor. The attempt never succeeds. Kafka’s most developed novel — left unfinished, breaking off mid-sentence.

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Essential Short Stories

In the Penal Colony — An execution device that inscribes the sentence on the condemned’s body. One of Kafka’s most disturbing and most directly political stories.

The Judgment — A young man is condemned to death by drowning by his father. Kafka’s first major story, written in one night.

Before the Law — A parable about a man who waits his entire life outside a door marked “the law.” Published as a chapter in The Trial and standalone.

A Vision That Named a Condition

Franz Kafka created a vision of human existence so distinctive and so penetrating that his very name became an adjective, “Kafkaesque,” used to describe the nightmarish, the absurd, and the bewildering experiences that his fiction so powerfully captured. Kafka’s achievement was to render a particular vision of human existence, of the individual lost in incomprehensible systems, oppressed by inaccessible authorities, and trapped in situations of absurd and nightmarish logic, with such power and originality that his name came to denote this entire condition. The term “Kafkaesque” testifies to the singular power and influence of his vision, for few writers have so thoroughly captured a dimension of human experience that their name becomes the standard word for it. Kafka’s fiction renders the experience of the individual confronting vast, incomprehensible, and oppressive systems, the bewildering logic of bureaucracy and authority, and the absurd and nightmarish situations in which his characters find themselves trapped, with a power and precision that have made his vision permanently influential. This vision named a condition of modern existence, the experience of alienation, powerlessness, and absurdity before incomprehensible systems and authorities, and Kafka rendered it with such force that his name became its emblem. For readers, Kafka offers a singular and penetrating vision of human existence, the nightmarish, absurd, and bewildering condition that his fiction captured so powerfully that his name came to denote it. A vision that named a condition is Kafka’s achievement, his rendering of the individual lost in incomprehensible systems and trapped in absurd, nightmarish logic with such power that his name became the adjective for the entire condition.

Alienation, Guilt, and the Inaccessible

The central preoccupations of Kafka’s fiction are alienation, guilt, and the confrontation with inaccessible and incomprehensible authority, themes that recur throughout his work and that give it its distinctive and unsettling power. Kafka’s fiction is animated by a profound sense of alienation, of the individual cut off, isolated, and estranged from others, from society, and even from himself, and this alienation pervades his work and gives it its distinctive atmosphere of isolation and estrangement. His fiction is equally preoccupied with guilt, with a pervasive sense of inexplicable guilt and the condition of being accused, judged, and condemned by forces one cannot understand or confront, as in his great novel of a man arrested and prosecuted for a crime that is never named. And his work is preoccupied with the confrontation with inaccessible and incomprehensible authority, with vast and impenetrable systems and powers that govern the individual’s fate while remaining utterly beyond his understanding or reach, as in his novel of a man who can never gain access to the authorities of the castle that controls his life. These preoccupations, alienation, guilt, and the inaccessible authority, recur throughout Kafka’s fiction and give it its distinctive and unsettling power, capturing the experience of the individual lost, accused, and powerless before incomprehensible forces. For readers, Kafka’s fiction offers a profound exploration of alienation, guilt, and the confrontation with inaccessible authority, the unsettling themes that give his work its power. Alienation, guilt, and the inaccessible are the central preoccupations of Kafka’s fiction, the experience of estrangement, inexplicable guilt, and the confrontation with incomprehensible authority, which recur throughout his work and give it its distinctive and unsettling power.

The Strange Afterlife of the Work

The story of how Kafka’s work came to the world is itself remarkable, for much of his most important fiction was published only after his death, against his own expressed wishes, and his rise to the status of one of the central figures of modern literature occurred largely posthumously. Kafka published relatively little during his lifetime, and he left instructions that his unpublished manuscripts, including his major novels, be destroyed after his death, instructions that were famously disregarded by his literary executor, who instead published the works and brought them to the world. This strange afterlife of the work, its publication against the author’s own wishes, means that the fiction on which Kafka’s towering reputation rests came to the world only posthumously, and that his rise to the status of one of the central and most influential figures of modern literature occurred largely after his death. The disregard of his instructions to destroy his manuscripts preserved for the world some of the most important and influential works of modern literature, and Kafka’s posthumous rise to central importance is among the remarkable stories of literary history. That his major works survived only through the disregard of his own wishes, and that his enormous influence and reputation developed largely after his death, gives the story of his work a strange and remarkable character. For readers, the strange afterlife of Kafka’s work adds to the fascination of his fiction, the major works preserved against his wishes and his reputation developing largely posthumously. The strange afterlife of the work marks Kafka’s career, for much of his most important fiction was published only after his death, against his own expressed wishes, and his rise to the status of a central figure of modern literature occurred largely posthumously, through the disregard of his instructions to destroy his manuscripts.

Kafka and Translation

The choice of translation significantly affects the reading experience. Max Brod’s early translations are now considered inaccurate. The Muir translations were standard for decades. The current consensus favourites are:

• Breon Mitchell (The Trial, 1998) — Considered the most accurate English Trial
• Mark Harman (The Castle, 1998) — Scholarly favourite
• Susan Bernofsky (The Metamorphosis, 2014) — Excellent contemporary translation

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