Amerika: The Man Who Disappeared [Paperback]

Michael Hofmann's startlingly visceral and immediate translation revives Kafka's great comedy, and captures a new Kafka, free from Prague and loose in the new world, a Kafka shot through with light in this highly charged and enormously nuanced translation. Kafka began the first of his three novels in 1911, but like the others,Anything by Kafka is worth reading again, especially in the hands of such a gifted translator as Hofmann.[Hofmann's] new translation is more successful in conveying ... a sense of Kafka's unfinished work.One can hardly fail to welcome Michael Hofmann's more accurate English text.Hofmann's translation is invaluable....It achieves what translations are supposedly unable to do: it is at once 'loyal' and 'beautiful.'Hofmann's slick, sleek translation does a wonderful job of keeping those competing forces in balance.Unpredictable and funny, as close to a Buster Keaton comedy as you can get.A stirring, singular work, now restored to its original beauty.Michael Hofmanns magnificent new translation restores its rightful place as one of Kafkas most delightful and most memorable works.Of all the recent re-translations of Kafka into English, this volume is the most noteworthy. It achieves what translations are supposedly unable to do; it is at once loyal and beautifulbeautifully disorienting, beautifully confusing, beautifully cruel.Hofmanns ability to overcome the obstacles presented by this particular work from Kafka marks this as the best translation.Newly restored to the original text: for this new translation, Hofmann returned to Kafkas manuscripts, restoring matters of substance and detail, and even the books original ending.