Is That Kafka?: 99 Finds

Reiner Stach

ISBN 10: 081122516X / ISBN 13: 9780811225168

Published by New Directions Publishing Corporation February 2017, 2017

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 866048

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Is That Kafka?: 99 Finds
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation February 2017
• Publication Date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 081122516X
• ISBN 13: 9780811225168
• Binding: Paper Back
• Condition: Used
• Seller catalogs:
  • Literature

About this title

Synopsis

In the course of compiling his highly acclaimed, three-volume life of Kafka, Reiner Stach made one astounding discovery after another: original writings, unexpected photographs, inconsistencies in handwritten texts, surprising excerpts from letters, and testimonies from Kafka's contemporaries that shed surprising light on his personality and his writing.

Is that Kafka? presents tasty morsels all about the real Kafka: he couldn't lie, but he cheated on his high-school exams; bitten by the fitness fad, he avidly followed the regime of a Danish exercise guru; he drew beautifully; he loved beer; he read biographies voraciously; he made the most beautiful presents, especially to children; odd things made him cry or made him furious; he adored slapstick. Every discovery by Stach chips away at the stereotypical version of Kafka as the dark, sexless, tortured neurotic--and laughter, of all things, becomes the keynote.

About the Author

Reiner Stach, born in 1951 in Saxony, is the author of the definitive biography of Kafka. The first two volumes, published by Princeton University Press, received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly ("superb"), Library Journal ("a monumental accomplishment"), Kirkus ("essential"), and Booklist ("masterful"). "I can't say enough about the liveliness and richness of Stach's book," Michael Dirda exclaimed in The Washington Post. "Every page feels excited, dynamic, utterly alive."

In 2010 Kurt Beals was a finalist for the Best Translated Book Award for Anja Utler's engulf-enkindle, and in 2012 he won the first ever German Book Office Translation Prize. His translation of Regina Ullmann's The Country Road was published by New Directions in 2015.