The Trial

In Prague at the start of the 20th century, Josef K. finds himself involved in a strange legal process. The Trial presents the byzantine and bewildering journey K. is subjected to by the authorities and forces he can hardly begin to grapple with.

Kafka’s writings, The Trial foremost among them, are considered among the essential and important depictions of 20th century state and society. Vast bureaucracies command impersonal authority from an unreachable distance, and the human individual is left isolated in the face of far greater powers. Alienation and the absurd lurk between Kafka’s lines. Yet, preventing a descent into dull drabness, all of this is presented with a slight tinge of an ironic and surreal sense of humour. As a legal professional himself, Kafka was intimately familiar with the systems of bureaucracy and justice, and their operations.

Our section on Franz Kafka and his times includes an essay by the esteemed literary critic Walter Benjamin.