A superb new translation byMichael Hofmannof some ofKafka'smost frightening, strange & visionary short fictionAfterFranz Kafka'sdeath, in perhaps the most important of all acts of literary disobedience, his executor refused to agree to Kafka's wish that his great mass of unpublished fiction be destroyed. This fiction included not onlyThe CastleandThe Trialbut also the amazingly varied, chilling and ingenious short works collected inThe Burrow & Other Stories. These tales, some little more than a page, others much more substantial, are among the greatest works of Central European literature. They vary from the tiny and horrifying'Little Fable'to the elaborate waking nightmares of'Building the Great Wall of China'& the title story'The Burrow', where an unidentified creature describes its creation of an endlessly elaborate burrow to protect itself from unidentified enemies, but with every trap or tunnel only creating further terrors and uncertainty.°°°In this long short story, an unidentified creature constructs an intricate underground sett with labyrinthine defences & elaborate decoy entrances. The beast becomes increasingly paranoid, convinced that a predator might stumble across his lair.The outer windings of the burrow form a brilliant ‘little maze of passages’, designed to trap intruders. ‘I must thread the tormenting complications of this labyrinth physically as well as mentally whenever I go out,’ muses the creature, ‘and I am both exasperated and touched when, as sometimes happens, I lose myself for a moment in my own maze.’— Henry Eliot,Penguin UK— 8 literary mazes to explore