A Cage Went in Search of a Bird: Ten Kafkaesque Stories - Softcover

Smith, Ali; Orange, Tommy; Alderman, Naomi; Oyeyemi, Helen; Ridgway, Keith; Li, Yiyun; Kaufman, Charlie; Batuman, Elif; Ross, Leone; Cohen, Joshua

Softcover

ISBN 10: 034914642X ISBN 13: 9780349146423

Publisher: Abacus, 2025

Synopsis

'Kafka himself would love it' The i
'As captivating as it is thought-provoking' Glamour
'Unsettling and uneasy' Daily Mail
'Glorious' Harper's Bazaar

A collection of brand-new short stories written by major international writers and inspired by Kafka

What happens when Kafka's idionsyncratic imagination meets some of the greatest literary minds writing in English across the globe today? In this collection of stories, commissioned to commemorate one hundred years since his death, ten of our most celebrated international writers take ideas of Kafka's - motifs from his stories, titles of his famous works, or unfinished fragments left behind in his Blue Octavo Notebooks - and run with them to make something new.

About this title

About the Author

Ali Smith was born in Inverness and lives in Cambridge. She is the author of three collections of stories and three novels. Hotel World was shortlisted for both the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize in 2001 and her latest novel, The Accidental, won the 2006 Whitbread Novel Award. Ali reviews regularly for the Guardian, the Scotsman and the TLS.

From the Back Cover

Franz Kafka is widely regarded as one of the great geniuses of twentieth-century literature. What happens when some of the most original literary minds of today take an idea, a mood or a line from his work and use it to spark something new?

'A glorious new collection of short stories inspired by the angst-ridden absurdism of the Czech writer' Harper's Bazaar

'A kaleidoscope of Kafkaesque tales woven by a brilliant and diverse array of renowned and talented authors ... Readers are treated to a rich tapestry of narratives, each as captivating as it is thought-provoking' Glamour


'Unsettling and uneasy ... brimful of the dark claustrophobia that made Kafka's work so startling and suffocating' Daily Mail



'Eerie, darkly comic, vertiginously varied ... a refreshing range of responses to the absurdist nature of modern life' Financial Times


'This collection is quite the achievement ... both ridiculous and brilliant. Thank goodness it exists. Kafka himself would love it' The i

Edition details

• Publisher: Abacus
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 034914642X
• ISBN 13: 9780349146423
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256