Franz Kafka: Metamorphosis, Paperback

Written by Franz Kafka and often considered to be his magnum opus, "The Metamorphosis" tells the story of one young traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, who inexplicably wakes up as a giant insect. Despite the novella's short length, Franz Kafka manages to provide a deep insight into the human condition, ironically through the eyes of a cockroach. Though "The Metamorphosis" can seem depressing at times, the overall message is quite hopeful. The novel keeps its reader enthralled with a good balance of absurdist and realist elements. "The Metamorphosis" is so much more than a story about a man turning into a beetle. It is about the reaction of Gregor Samsa's family to the change, plus a clever way of writing about how a family would deal with the main breadwinner in the house becoming unable to work, and, on a wider scope, the way a family reacts to someone who is disabled or terminally ill. The descriptive writing in "The Metamorphosis" is excellent, and though it is quite a sad tale, it is also very funny in parts-enough to make readers laugh out loud. Though written nearly 100 years ago, "The Metamorphosis" is amazingly relevant to today's world, and remains a great read.

Franz Kafka (1883-1924) is one of the most influential fiction writers of the early 20th century; a novelist and writer of short stories whose works, only after his death, came to be regarded as one of the major achievements of 20th century literature. He was born to middle class German-speaking Jewish parents in Prague, Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic, in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The house in which he was born, on the Old Town Square next to Prague's Church of St Nicholas, today contains a permanent exhibition devoted to the author. Kafka's work-the novels The Trial (1925), The Castle (1926) and Amerika (1927), as well as short stories including The Metamorphosis (1915) and In the Penal Colony (1914)-is now collectively considered to be among the most original bodies of work in modern Western literature. Much of his work, unfinished at the time of his death, was published posthumously.