Jason Furman's Reviews > Metamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka

An enjoyable blend of biography, literary criticism, literary influence, and travelogue. I downloaded the sample after seeing it recommended by the Amazon algorithm, enjoyed it, and so read all of it.

Kafka is so impossible to place geographically, linguistically, ethnically. Is he Czech? Austro-Hungarian? German writer? Jewish? He was all of these and none of these. To learn more about him Karolina Watroba travels around to all of these places and more--including Oxford where many of his papers are and Korea. We learn a little more about Kafka's person, writing and impact in each of these places. She has a deeper discussion of a few of his works (Metamorphosis, The Judgment, The Trial) and also some discussion of a lot of works influenced by Kafka.

Most of all Watroba's relatively light and enthusiastic and curious tone shows through from beginning to end, making the book particularly enjoyable.