The translator … has done a superb job of making the uncannily ‘untranslatable’ Kafka accessible (especially in ‘The Metamorphosis’) in a manner that is fresh, vivid, and faithful as possible to the author’s original style.
The Metamorphosis + In the Penal Colony (2 contemporary translations by Ian Johnston)
Deux chefs-d’œuvre de Kafka réunis dans une édition numérique unique : La Métamorphose, où Gregor Samsa se réveille transformé en insecte monstrueux, et Dans la colonie pénitentiaire, exploration glaçante d’un système judiciaire absurde.
The Metamorphosis is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It has been cited as one of the seminal works of fiction of the 20th century and is studied in colleges and universities across the Western world. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed (metamorphosed) into a large, monstrous insect-like creature. The cause of Samsa's transformation is never revealed, and Kafka never did give an explanation. The rest of Kafka's novella deals with Gregor's attempts to adjust to his new condition as he deals with being burdensome to his parents and sister, who are repulsed by the horrible, verminous creature Gregor has become.
"In the Penal Colony" is a short story by Franz Kafka written in German in October 1914, and first published in October 1919. The story is set in an unnamed penal colony. Internal clues and the setting on an island suggest Octave Mirbeau's The Torture Garden as an influence. As in some of Kafka's other writings, the narrator in this story seems detached from, or perhaps numbed by, events that one would normally expect to be registered with horror. In the Penal Colony describes the last use of an elaborate torture and execution device that carves the sentence of the condemned prisoner on his skin before letting him die, all in the course of twelve hours. As the plot unfolds, the reader learns more and more about the machine, including its origin and original justification.
Franz Kafka (1883 - 1924) was a German-language writer of novels and short stories, regarded by critics as one of the most influential authors of the 20th century. Kafka strongly influenced genres such as existentialism. Most of his works, such as The Metamorphosis, The Trial, and The Castle, are filled with the themes and archetypes of alienation, physical and psychological brutality, parent-child conflict, characters on a terrifying quest, labyrinths of bureaucracy, and mystical transformations.
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Franz Kafka (1883–1924) est considéré comme l’un des écrivains les plus influents du XXe siècle. Né à Prague, alors dans l’Empire austro-hongrois, il a marqué la littérature mondiale par des œuvres explorant l’absurdité, l’aliénation et la complexité de la condition humaine. Ses récits, souvent empreints d’une atmosphère onirique et angoissante, ont inspiré des courants comme l’existentialisme et le théâtre de l’absurde. Bien que publié de son vivant, une grande partie de son œuvre, dont La Métamorphose et Dans la colonie pénitentiaire, n’a été révélée au public qu’après sa mort, sur demande de son ami Max Brod.
newsmode Revue de presse
In a fine balancing act, Ian Johnston’s translation blows the dust off of some of Kafka’s major short stories: its formality is never stiff and its colloquialisms never wooden.