A Hunger Artist and Other Stories

Franz Kafka
Joyce Crick and Ritchie Robertson

Oxford World's Classics

A unique anthology of Kafka's stories and other short pieces by prize-winning translator Joyce Crick, with invaluable introduction, notes, and other editorial material by Kafka scholar Ritchie Robertson.
Brings together Kafka's two published collections of short stories, A Country Doctor: Little Tales and A Hunger Artist: Four Stories together with other texts published during his lifetime and a selection of posthumously published material.
The stories are among Kafka's best-known, haunting and compelling satires on the human condition, on art and artists, and on life itself, which complement his major fictions.
The only short-story edition to provide a full introduction and explanatory notes, which probe the meanings and accomplishments of these enigmatic works.
A Biographical Preface provides an account of Kafka's life against the context of his time.
Up-to-date bibliography and chronology of the author.

A Hunger Artist and Other Stories

Franz Kafka
Joyce Crick and Ritchie Robertson

Description

'In recent decades, interest in hunger artists has greatly diminished.'

Kafka published two collections of short stories in his lifetime, A Country Doctor: Little Tales (1919) and A Hunger Artist: Four Stories (1924). Both collections are included in their entirety in this edition, which also contains other, uncollected stories and a selection of posthumously published works that have become part of the Kafka canon.

Enigmatic, satirical, often bleakly humorous, these stories approach human experience at a tangent: a singing mouse, an ape, an inquisitive dog, and a paranoid burrowing creature are among the protagonists, as well as the professional starvation artist. A patient seems to be dying from a metaphysical wound; the war-horse of Alexander the Great steps aside from history and adopts a quiet profession as a lawyer. Fictional meditations on art and artists, and a series of aphorisms that come close to expressing Kafka's philosophy of life, further explore themes that recur in his major novels. Newly translated, and with an invaluable introduction and notes, Kafka's short stories are haunting and unforgettable.

ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

A Hunger Artist and Other Stories

Franz Kafka
Joyce Crick and Ritchie Robertson

Oxford World's Classics

THE AEROPLANES AT BRESCIA
A COUNTRY DOCTOR: LITTLE TALES
The New Advocate
A Country Doctor
In the Gallery
An Ancient Manuscript
Before the Law
Jackals and Arabs
A Visit to the Mine
The Next Village
A Message from the Emperor
Odradek, or Cares of a Householder
Eleven Sons
A Brother's Murder
A Dream
A Report to an Academy
THE RIDER ON THE COAL-SCUTTLE
A HUNGER ARTIST: FOUR STORIES
First Sorrow
A Little Woman
A Hunger Artist
Josefine, the Singer or the Mouse-People
BLUMFELD, AN ELDERLY BACHELOR
AT THE BUILDING OF THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA
THE HUNTSMAN GRACCHUS
INVESTIGATIONS OF A DOG
THE BURROW
SELECTED SHORTER PIECES
The Bridge
The Knock on the Courtyard Gate
TheTruth about Sancho Panza
The Spinning-Top
Cat and Mouse
On Parables
Give it up!
APHORISMS

A Hunger Artist and Other Stories

Franz Kafka
Joyce Crick and Ritchie Robertson

Oxford World's Classics

Author Information

Franz Kafka

Joyce Crick and Ritchie Robertson, Taylor Professor of German, University of Oxford

Joyce Crick taught German at University College London until her retirement. She has written on Kafka's first English translators, Willa and Edwin Muir, and for OWC she has translated Kafka's The Metamorphosis and Other Stories, Grimms' Selected Tales, and Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams, winner of the Shlegel-Tieck Prize in 2000.

Ritchie Robertson is the author of the Very Short Introduction to Kafka. For OWC he has translated Hofmann's The Golden Pot and Other Stories and introduced and annotated editions of Kafka, Freud, and Schnitzler. He is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Mann.