The Metamorphosis and Other Stories

This collection gathers the title novella with a selection of Kafka's shorter fiction. In The Metamorphosis, a salesman wakes to find himself changed into an insect, and his family must adapt. The other pieces typically place an ordinary person in a strange, unexplained predicament, often involving authority, punishment, guilt or isolation. Written in clear, matter-of-fact prose, the stories make the bizarre feel believable. Together they offer a good introduction to Kafka's imagination and to the unsettling mood that gave rise to the word Kafkaesque.