By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘In the Penal Colony’ is one of the best-known stories by Franz Kafka. After ‘The Metamorphosis’, it is his most acclaimed and widely discussed shorter work. Kafka wrote ‘In the Penal Colony’ in two weeks in 1914, while he was at work on his novel, The Trial. He revised it in 1918, as he was dissatisfied with the story’s original ending, and it was published in 1919.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Along with George Orwell, it was perhaps Franz Kafka (1883-1924) who did the most to diagnose the political and existential malaise of the twentieth century.
And just as we use the word ‘Orwellian’ for so many aspects of modern-day life, from policing speech to the use of video surveillance, so ‘Kafkaesque’ has become synonymous with the absurd bureaucratic processes which typify – and stultify – our everyday lives.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘The Metamorphosis’ is a short story (sometimes classed as a novella) by the Czech-born German-language author Franz Kafka (1883-1924). It is his best-known shorter work, published in German in 1915, with the first English translation appearing in 1933. ‘The Metamorphosis’ has attracted numerous interpretations, so it might be worth probing this fascinating story more closely.