Twisted Spoon Press

PO Box 21 - Preslova 12, 150 21 Prague 5, Czech Republic

Book details:
 
Contemplation

[ excerpt ]



  contemplation

by Franz Kafka

translated from the German by Kevin Blahut
illustrated by Fedele Spadafora


Kafka's first published book (1913), Contemplation is composed of eighteen "prose poems," displaying the full range of Kafka's compact metaphorical style. In this new translation, Blahut has been faithful to the original German while rendering it in a fresh, contemporary English. This edition is complemented by 18 pen-and-ink drawings.


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Dear Mr. Rowohlt: I am enclosing the little prose pieces you wanted to see; they will probably be enough to make up a small book. While I was putting it together toward this end, I sometimes had to choose between satisfying my sense of responsibility and an eagerness to have a book among your beautiful books. Certainly I did not in each instance make an entirely clear-cut decision. But now I should naturally be happy if the things pleased you sufficiently to print them.

— Franz Kafka

I can well imagine this book finding its way into the hands of someone whose life is instantly changed by it.

— Max Brod, März

This volume seems to have paved the way to Parnassus. It is profound, having been created by the most delicate of fingers.

— Kurt Tucholsky, Prager Tagblatt

Rhythmic like the lament of a forlorn maiden, this exceptionally mature work exhibits the light touch of the French prose masters.

— Otto Pick, Bohemia





   

ISBN 978 80 902171 5 7
72 pp.
130 x 180mm
18 b/w illustrations
hardcover
short fiction

Price of €13.50 includes airmail worldwide


or order from:
The Book Depository
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Indiebound
Powells
SPD
Central Books

 
A Country Doctor

[ excerpt ]



  a country doctor

by Franz Kafka

translated from the German by Kevin Blahut
illustrated by Zoulfiia Gazaeva


First published in 1919, among the 14 stories contained in this volume are some of Kafka's most renowned shorter works: "Before the Law," "Jackals and Arabs," "A Report for an Academy." As with the other volumes published by Twisted Spoon Press, Kevin Blahut has produced a translation that is contemporary and fresh, capturing perfectly the ironic humor found in these stories.



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ISBN 978 80 902171 4 0
96 pp.
130 x 180mm
8 b/w illustrations
hardcover
short fiction

Price of €13.50 includes airmail worldwide


or order from:
The Book Depository
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Indiebound
Powells
SPD
Central Books




 
A Hunger Artist

[ excerpt ]



  a hunger artist

by Franz Kafka

translated from the German by Kevin Blahut
illustrated by Helena Vlcnovska


The proofs for A Hunger Artist, published in 1924, were edited by Kafka just before his death. The four stories contained in this volume — "First Sorrow," "A Little Woman," "A Hunger Artist," and "Josephine, the Singer" — mark his maturity as a writer. The story from which the volume takes its name is one of Kafka’s most famous and enigmatic.


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Kafka's sirens are silent. Perhaps for Kafka music and singing are an expression or at least a token of escape, a token of hope which comes to us from that intermediate world — at once unfinished and commonplace, comforting and silly — in which the assistants are at home. Kafka is like the lad who set out to learn what fear was. He has got into Potemkin's palace and finally, in the depths of its cellar, has encountered Josephine, the singing mouse . . .

— Walter Benjamin



   

ISBN 978 80 902171 1 9
88 pp.
130 x 180mm
4 pen and ink drawings
hardcover
short stories

reprint in fall 2010

ordering:
The Book Depository
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Indiebound
Powells
SPD
Central Books


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