Kafka: The Torment of Man

René Marill-Albérès · Pierre de Boisdeffre

Nov 2014 · Open Road Media

About this ebook

This is a study of Kafka's tragic vision of life, his profoundly disturbing awareness of man's utter loneliness in a pitiless universe, and his artistry in effecting a strange intimate fusion between symbolism and realism—between anguished poetic narration and the terrifying reality of an absurd and ambiguous environment. The book discusses the historical setting, the literary currents, and the personal details affecting the development of Kafka's genius: his isolation in a labyrinthine universe; his sufferings, sickness and death; his influence and survival through his art. The central idea of the book is summed up in a quotation from Jean-Paul Sartre: "I have nothing to say about Kafka except that he is one of the rarest and greatest writers of our time." The authors are specialists in contemporary literature.

Translated from the French by Wade Baskin.

About the author

René Marill-Albérès (1921-1982) was a writer, speaker, editor, compiler and author of introductions. An authority on contemporary French literature and a novelist in his own right, Professor Albérès is eminently qualified to trace the literary development and relate the leading French intellectual's fictional works to his philosophical and political writings. Professor Albérès has also published studies of Sartre and Unamuno.

Professor de Boisdeffre is the author of many critical and historical studies, including a book on Malraux.