Kafka

Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari set out to rescue Franz Kafka from the many critics who have misread him. Where earlier interpreters found a case of neurosis shaped by the Oedipus complex, or a retreat into transcendence, guilt and inner subjectivity, the authors argue for a very different Kafka. They present him as a joyful writer and a champion of radical politics, one who never stopped refusing to bow to rigid systems of authority.

First published in French in 1975, the study is a work of literary criticism that draws on the authors' wider philosophical project. The original French title was Kafka: Pour une littérature mineure, and the concept of a minor literature runs through the book. Readers interested in Kafka, literary theory, or how writing can resist dominant power structures will find it a central text.