Franz Kafka: The Metamorphosis and Other Stories [A Persian Edition]

Description

Metamorphosis is a famous novella written by Franz Kafka and was initially published in 1915. The story follows Gregor Samsa, a salesman who wakes up one day and realizes he has transformed into a monstrous vermin, and he struggles to adapt to his new condition. The novella has been widely analyzed by literary critics, and various interpretations have been proposed. In pop culture, the insect is usually portrayed as a cockroach in adaptations of the story.

The novella is the longest of the stories Kafka considered complete and published during his lifetime, with approximately 70 printed pages over three chapters. The text was first published in the October 1915 issue of the journal Die weißen Blätter, edited by René Schickele. Later that same year, the first book edition of Metamorphosis was published in the series Der jüngste Tag, edited by Kurt Wolff in December.

Franz Kafka, a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, was born on July 3rd, 1883, in Prague, the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time (now the capital of the Czech Republic). Kafka is widely considered one of the most important literary figures of the 20th century, renowned for his distinctive fusion of realism and the fantastic.

TheMetamorphosis and Other Stories has been translated into Farsi by Ali Salami.

His stories typically feature solitary protagonists who are confronted with strange or surreal situations and the baffling power structures of their society. Kafka’s work explores themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity.

Kafka was born into a middle-class, German-speaking Jewish family and trained as a lawyer. He worked full-time for an insurance company, which left him with limited free time to write. Kafka wrote hundreds of letters to his family and friends, including his father, with whom he had a tense and formal relationship. Although he became engaged to several women, he never married. Kafka died at the age of 40 from tuberculosis in 1924, in obscurity.

Despite his struggles with self-doubt, Kafka was a prolific writer who spent most of his free time writing, often late at night. He is estimated to have burned 90% of his total work, leaving few of his works published during his lifetime. In his will, Kafka instructed his friend and literary executor, Max Brod, to destroy his unfinished works, including his novels The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika. However, Brod ignored these instructions and had much of Kafka’s work published.

Kafka’s writings became famous in German-speaking countries after World War II and have since influenced literature, art, music, and philosophy worldwide. One of his most well-known works is Metamorphosis, a novella published in 1915. The story follows Gregor Samsa, a salesman who wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a giant insect and struggles to adapt to his new form. Metamorphosis is widely discussed among literary critics and has been adapted into various forms of popular culture.