Introducing Kafka

Drawn by Robert Crumb and written by David Zane Mairowitz, this book tells the life of Franz Kafka through a blend of narrative and comic art. Readers follow the course of Kafka's days while the pages move between prose passages and drawn panels, so the story of the man and the work he produced appear side by side.

The creative heart of the book lies in its comic renderings of several of Kafka's best-known stories: The Metamorphosis, A Hunger Artist, In the Penal Colony and The Judgment. Shorter sketches cover his three novels, The Trial, The Castle and Amerika. Throughout, the authors connect events from Kafka's life and his temperament to the stories he wrote. His strained bond with his family, for instance, is traced into the animal figures that recur in his fiction, most vividly Gregor Samsa, who wakes up as a huge insect and turns into a weight on the people who depend on him.

The result suits readers who want an accessible entry point into Kafka, whether they are new to his writing or already familiar with it. The title is also sold as R. Crumb's Kafka.