Metamorphoses

In Search of Franz Kafka

Karolina Watroba

This groundbreaking study of Franz Kafka’s legacy—to be published during the centenary of his death in 2024—explores Kafka’s life and influence in an entirely new and dynamic way.

In 2024, exactly one hundred years after his death at the age of forty, readers all over the world will reach for the works of Franz Kafka. Many of them will want to learn more about the enigmatic man behind the classic books filled with mysterious courts and monstrous insects. Who, exactly, was Franz Kafka?

Karolina Watroba, the first Germanist ever elected as a fellow of Oxford's All Souls College, will tell Kafka's story beyond the boundaries of language, time, and space, traveling from the Prague of Kafka's birth through the work of contemporary writers in East Asia, whose award-winning novels are, in part, homages to the great man himself.

Metamorphoses presents a non-chronological journey through Kafka's life, combining literary scholarship with the responses of his readers throughout the last century. It is a both an exploration of Kafka's life and an exciting new way of approaching literary history.

Karolina Watroba is a research fellow at All Souls College, University of Oxford, where she works on modern literature and film across eight European languages and beyond, with a focus on German, English, and Polish. Karolina lives in Oxford, England.

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Endorsements & Reviews

“An astute modern take on Kafka’s importance, published on the centenary of his death. Watroba’s studies take the form of a travelogue as she searches for ‘Kafka’s metamorphoses around the world,’ and she strikes a clever balance between contemporary connections and scholarly research. It’s a pleasure to travel with her as she illuminates the global circuitry of what it means to be Kafkaesque today.” Kirkus Reviews

“A high-spirited, richly informed, and original portrait, a cross between biography, literary analysis and a study in modern canonization: Karolina Watroba is an inspired guide and her book a pleasure to read.” Marina Warner, author of Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale