'In recent decades, interest in hunger artists has greatly diminished.'
Kafka published two collections of short stories in his lifetime, A Country Doctor: Little Tales (1919) and A Hunger Artist: Four Stories (1924). Both collections are included in their entirety in this edition, which also contains other, uncollected stories and a selection of posthumously published works that have become part of the Kafka canon.
Enigmatic, satirical, often bleakly humorous, these stories approach human experience at a tangent: a singing mouse, an ape, an inquisitive dog, and a paranoid burrowing creature are among the protagonists, as well as the professional starvation artist. A patient seems to be dying from a metaphysical wound; the war-horse of Alexander the Great steps aside from history and adopts a quiet profession as a lawyer. Fictional meditations on art and artists, and a series of aphorisms that come close to expressing Kafka's philosophy of life, further explore themes that recur in his major novels. Newly translated, and with an invaluable introduction and notes, Kafka's short stories are haunting and unforgettable.
ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
Joyce Crick taught German at University College London until her retirement. She has written on Kafka's first English translators, Willa and Edwin Muir, and for OWC she has translated Kafka's The Metamorphosis and Other Stories, Grimms' Selected Tales, and Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams, winner of the Shlegel-Tieck Prize in 2000. Ritchie Robertson is the author of the Very Short Introduction to Kafka. For OWC he has translated Hofmann's The Golden Pot and Other Stories and introduced and annotated editions of Kafka, Freud, and Schnitzler. He is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Mann.
