A lyrical translation of Kafka’s first novel - a menacing allegory of modern life. Translated with an Introduction by Michael Hofmann. ‘He had almost forgotten he was in the uncertain hold of a ship moored to the coast of an unknown continent’ Karl Rossmann has been banished by his parents to America, following a family scandal. There, with unquenchable optimism, he throws himself into the strange experiences that lie before him as he slowly makes his way into the interior of the great continent. Although Kafka’s first novel can be read as a disturbing allegory of modern life in all its alienation, it is also a novel infused with blitheness and exuberance.