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[ excerpt ]
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contemplation
by Franz Kafka
translated from the German by Kevin Blahut
illustrated by Fedele Spadafora
Kafka's first published book (1913), Contemplation is composed of eighteen "prose poems,"
displaying the full range of Kafka's compact metaphorical style. In this new translation, Blahut has
been faithful to the original German while rendering it in a fresh, contemporary English. This edition is complemented
by 18 pen-and-ink drawings.
Dear Mr. Rowohlt: I am enclosing the little prose pieces you wanted to see; they will probably be
enough to make up a small book. While I was putting it together toward this end, I sometimes had to choose between satisfying
my sense of responsibility and an eagerness to have a book among your beautiful books. Certainly I did not in each instance
make an entirely clear-cut decision. But now I should naturally be happy if the things pleased you sufficiently to print them. |
— Franz Kafka
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I can well imagine this book finding its way into the hands of someone whose life is
instantly changed by it. |
— Max Brod, März
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This volume seems to have paved the way to Parnassus. It is profound,
having been created by the most delicate of fingers. |
— Kurt Tucholsky, Prager Tagblatt
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Rhythmic like the lament of a forlorn maiden, this exceptionally mature
work exhibits the light touch of the French prose masters. |
— Otto Pick, Bohemia
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ISBN 9788090217157
70 pp.
13 x 18 cm
18 B/W illustrations
hardcover
short fiction
release date:
June 1996
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[ excerpt ]
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a country doctor
by Franz Kafka
translated from the German by Kevin Blahut
illustrated by Zoulfiia Gazaeva
Written during the winter of 1916-17 when Kafka was living in one of the tiny houses on Golden Lane (formerly Alchimistengasse)
at Prague Castle, and published in spring 1920 by Kurt Wolff Verlag, the 14 short fictions comprising this volume are interconnected by
a persistent exploration of identity, where even animals anthropomorphize into a new identity. "Before the Law," "A Country Doctor,"
and "A Report for an Academy" are among the most renowned stories he produced, and Kevin Blahut has rendered them in an English
that is contemporary and fresh, capturing perfectly the nightmarish humor of Kafka's prose.
Kafka created in his works a new reality, a new, unique atmosphere,
pure, colder, more severe than ours, but really nothing more than an expression of our image and reality. |
— Felix Weltsch
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ISBN 9788090217140
92 pp.
13 x 18 cm
8 B/W illustrations
hardcover
short fiction
release date:
October 1997
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[ excerpt ]
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a hunger artist
by Franz Kafka
translated from the German by Kevin Blahut
illustrated by Helena Vlčnovská
The last book published during Kafka's lifetime, A Hunger Artist (1924) explores many of the themes
that were close to him: spiritual poverty, asceticism, futility, and the alienation of the modern artist. He
edited the manuscript just before his death, and these four stories are some of his best known and most powerful work, marking
his maturity as a writer. In addition to "First Sorrow," "A Little Woman," and "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse People" is
the title story, "A Hunger Artist," which has been called by the critic Heinz Politzer "a perfection, a fatal fulfillment
that expresses Kafka's desire for permanence."
Kafka's sirens are silent. Perhaps for Kafka music and singing are an expression or at
least a token of escape, a token of hope which comes to us from that intermediate world – at once unfinished
and commonplace, comforting and silly – in which the assistants are at home. Kafka is like the lad who set out
to learn what fear was. He has got into Potemkin's palace and finally, in the depths of its cellar, has encountered
Josephine, the singing mouse ... |
— Walter Benjamin
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ISBN 9788090217119
84 pp.
13 x 18 cm
4 pen and ink drawings
hardcover
short fiction
release date:
October 1996
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Order all three for $45
price includes priority mail worldwide
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