Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) is one of the best-known writers in the German language. He is especially famous for The Metamorphosis, The Trial, and The Castle, as well as his many shorter works. He died in 1924, before completing any of his full-length novels. At the end of his life, Kafka asked his lifelong friend and literary executor Max Brod to burn all his unpublished work. Brod overrode those wishes.

Joshua Cohen is the author of several books of fiction and nonfiction, including the novels The Book of Numbers and Moving Kings; the short-story collection Four New Messages; and the nonfiction collection Attention: Dispatches from a Land of Distraction. In 2017 Cohen was named one of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists. He lives in New York City.