Franz Kafka's final novel tells the haunting tale of a man known only as
K. and of his relentless, unavailing struggle with an inscrutable
authority in order to gain entrance to the Castle. Although Kafka seemed
to consider "The Castle" a failure, critics, in wrestling with its
enigmatic meaning, have recognized it as one of the great novels of our
century.
Unfinished at Kafka's death in 1924, the manuscript of "The Castle" was
edited for publication by Kafka's friend and literary executor, Max
Brod. Both Brod's edition and the English-language translation of it
that was prepared by Willa and Edwin Muir in 1930 have long been
considered flawed.
This new edition of Kafka's terrifying and comic masterpiece is the
product of an international team of experts who went back to Kafka's
original manuscript and notes to create an edition that is as close as
possible to the way the author left it. The "Times Literary Supplement"
hailed their work, saying that it will "decisively alter our
understanding of Kafka and render previous editions obsolete."
Mark Harman's brilliant translation closely follows the fluidity and
breathlessness of the sparsely punctuated original manuscript, revealing
levels of comedy, energy, and visual power that have not been previously
accessible to
English-language readers.
W. H. Auden likened Kafka to Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe as the
single most important writer of his age. Here, in this new edition, is a
Kafka for the twenty-first century.
