Geoffrey Brock

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K.
by Roberto Calasso (Knopf, Jan. 2005)
translated by Geoffrey Brock

“Elegantly translated.” —Frederick Crews, NY Review of Books

“Superbly translated.” —Jonathan Lethem, NYT Book Review

Read more excerpts from the reviews here.

What are Kafka’s stories about? Are they dreams? Allegories? Symbols? Things that happen every day? But where and when? Countless answers have been offered, but the question still arouses feelings of acute uncertainty, and the essential mystery remains intact. In this remarkable book, Roberto Calasso sets out not to dispel the mystery but to let it be illuminated by its own light. To that end, with extraordinary vision, imagination, and intellectual acumen, Calasso attempts to enter the flow, the tortuous movement, the physiology of the stories, and to delve into a puzzling question: Who is K.?

The culmination of the author’s lifelong fascination with Kafka, K. is a book of significant literary importance, the fourth part in a work in progress of which the previous volumes are The Ruin of Kasch, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, and Ka.

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