Amerika

A Brilliant new translation of the great writer's least Kafkaesque novel, based on a German-language text that was produced by a team of international scholars and that is more faithful to Kafka's original manuscript than anything we have had before.
With the same expert balance of precision and nuance that marked his translation of Kafka's The Castle, the award-winning translator Mark Harman now restores the humor and particularity of language to Amerika. Here is the story of seventeen-year-old Karl Rossman, who, following a scandal involving a housemaid, is banished by his parents to America. With unquenchable optimism and in the company of two comic-sinister companions, he throws himself into misadventure after misadventure, eventually landing in Oklahoma, where a career in the theater beckons.
Like much of Kafka's work, Amerika remained unfinished at the time of his death. Though we can never know how Kafka planned to end the novel, Mark Harman's superb translation allows us to appreciate as closely as possible what Kafka did commit to the page.
"So then you’re free?’
‘Yes, I’m free,’ said Karl, and nothing seemed more worthless than his freedom."
—Franz Kafka (Amerika)

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. Born in Prague into a middle-class Jewish family, Kafka grew up in the shadow of a domineering father. This fraught paternal relationship, combined with his own pervasive sense of isolation, became a central psychological driver in his writing, deeply shaping his unique perspective on authority and alienation.

After earning a law degree, Kafka spent most of his adult life working at a workers' accident insurance institute. He viewed this demanding bureaucratic job primarily as a means to pay the bills, reserving his nights for his true passion: writing. It was during these quiet hours that he crafted his distinct literary style, blending realistic settings with surreal, nightmarish scenarios where individuals are crushed by incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic powers.

During his lifetime, Kafka published only a small fraction of his work. His most famous piece published while he was alive is the 1915 novella The Metamorphosis, which chronicles the absurd and tragic story of a traveling salesman who wakes to find himself unexpectedly transformed into a giant insect. The haunting, illogical complexity of this and his other stories eventually gave rise to the term "Kafkaesque," a word now universally used to describe hopelessly bewildering and oppressive situations.

Plagued by crippling self-doubt and chronic health issues, Kafka contracted tuberculosis and died in a sanatorium near Vienna at just 40 years old. Before his death, he left explicit instructions for his closest friend and literary executor, Max Brod, to gather and burn all of his unpublished diaries and manuscripts unread.

Defying these final wishes, Brod recognized the profound genius of his friend's work and instead oversaw the posthumous publication of Kafka’s major unfinished novels, including The Trial and The Castle. Because of Brod's momentous decision, Kafka's visionary explorations of existential anxiety survived, securing his enduring legacy as a literary titan whose works continue to resonate worldwide.