Kafka's Other Trial

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Penguin Books Limited, Jan 26, 2012 - Literary Criticism - 144 pages

In July 1914, Franz Kafka's fianc e Felice broke off their engagement in a humiliating public tribunal, surrounded by her friends and family, and the other woman with whom Kafka had recently fallen in love. Broken and bereft, Kafka - at the height of his writing powers - turned the experience into his masterpiece, The Trial, where his lovers became the faceless prosecutors of Josef K. In Kafka's Other Trial, Canetti explores each letter that Kafka wrote to his fianc e, from their first tender moments together to his final letter and his refusal to reconcile.

In this affecting book, he offers moving insights into the creativity of Franz Kafka and the torment he suffered as a man, a lover, and a writer.

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About the author (2012)

Elias Canetti (1905-1994) is best known in the English-speaking world for Crowds and Power, Kafka's Other Trial and for the classic Auto-de-Fe. His family moved from Bulgaria to England, then Vienna, and he settled back in England in 1938. In 1981 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was cited by the Swedish Academy for his 'writings marked by a broad outlook and wealth of ideas and artistic power'.

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