21 Short Tales (Hardcover Library Edition)

21 Short Tales by Franz Kafka' is a unique body of writing—much of which is unfinished and which was primarily published posthumously—is viewed to be among the most significant in Western Literature. Franz Kafka was a German-speaking Bohemian Jewish novelist and short-story writer who was one of the major fiction writers of the 20th century. He was born to a middle-class German-speaking Jewish family in Prague Bohemia (presently the Czech Republic) Austria–Hungary. Few of Kafka's works were published during his lifetime. In his will Kafka instructed his executor and friend Max Brod to destroy his unfinished works but Brod ignored these instructions. His work has influenced a vast range of writers critics artists and philosophers during the 20th and 21st centuries.Kafka’s work which combines elements of realism and the fantastic typically features isolated protagonists facing eccentric or surrealistic predicaments and unfathomable socio-bureaucratic powers and has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation existential anxiety guilt and absurdity.