Kafka and Pinter: Shadow-Boxing

Kafka and Pinter is the first major study to focus on the extraordinary affinity between these two heavyweights of twentieth-century literature. As well as offering a bold new interpretation of Kafka's portrayal of the struggle between father and son in his classic stories The Judgement and The Metamorphosis , the book seeks to assess and document, through a detailed exposition of textual and other evidence, the extent to which Pinter's treatment of the same theme has been influenced by Kafka's example. Three of Pinter's plays - The Homecoming, Family Voices and Moonlight - are examined in depth, the last two more comprehensively perhaps than ever before. Clearly written and replete with all manner of fascinating parallels and interconnections, this book commends itself not only to students of Kafka and/or Pinter, but also to those with a more general interest in such areas as comparative literature, theatre studies, religion and psychology.

RAYMOND ARMSTRONG was born in Belfast in 1959. He has a BA (Hons) in combined humanities from the Ulster Polytechnic and a PhD in modern literature from the University of Ulster. Previously employed as a lecturer in English at the University of Ulster (1992-95), he now writes and teaches on a freelance basis. This is his first book.