The Tremendous World I Have Inside My Head: Franz Kafka: A Biographical Essay

Begley, Louis

ISBN 10: 1934633062 / ISBN 13: 9781934633069

Published by Atlas & Co., 2008

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 9781934633069-2-2

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Tremendous World I Have Inside My Head: Franz Kafka: A Biographical Essay
• Publisher: Atlas & Co.
• Publication Date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1934633062
• ISBN 13: 9781934633069
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very good

About this title

Synopsis

A new biography of Western literature's most iconic writer, from the acclaimed novelist and author of About Schmidt.

Kafkaesque: the very word evokes tortuous bureaucracy, crushing self-doubt, and an almost unbearable inadequacy in the face of higher powers. After Kafka, it can be said, literature was not the same. In the few novels and short stories he left behind, he distilled the horrors of the new age. Kafka's is the voice of the outsider—that is, the voice of each one of us—at once defined by its affiliations and completely, utterly alone.

The product of both a transitional age (the beginning of the 20th century) and a territory in flux (Czechoslovakia), Kafka spoke and wrote German in Czech territory. He was a Jew among Christians, a non-observant Jew among believers. Louis Begley, himself a multilingual exile and, like Kafka, a lawyer and writer, renders Kafka's life with sensitivity and insight. Begley's discussion of Kafka's masterpiece The Trial, along with shorter works such as "The Metamorphosis," opens a window on a tormented soul, one of the most intriguing figures of the modern period.

About the Author

Louis Begley's first novel, Wartime Lies, won the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Prix Médicis, and the Irish Times-Aer Lingus International Fiction Prize. Since then, he has published seven novels, including About Schmidt, made into a movie starring Jack Nicholson and Kathy Bates. His most recent publication is Matters of Honor. He lives in New York City.