Parables and Paradoxes

1961 book by Franz Kafka

0-8052-0422-9OCLC10988104

Parables and Paradoxes (Parabeln und Paradoxe) is a bilingual edition of selected writings by Franz Kafka edited by Nahum N. Glatzer (Schocken Books, 1961). In this volume of collected pieces, Kafka re-examines and rewrites some basic mythical tales of the Israelites, Ancient Greeks, Far East, and the Western World, as well as creations of his own imagination.

The material in the book is drawn from Kafka's notebooks, diaries, letters, short fictional works and the novel The Trial. An earlier version of the collection appeared under the title Parables, and included a smaller selection of works.

On Parables

An Imperial Message
Pekin and the Emperor
The News of the Building of the Wall: a Fragment
The Great wall and the Tower of Babel

Paradise
The Tower of Babel
The Pit of Babel
The City Coat of Arms
Abraham
Mount Sinai
The Building of the Temple
The Animal in the Synagogue
Before the Law
The Watchman
The Coming of the Messiah

III

Prometheus
Poseidon
The Silence of the Sirens
The Sirens
Leopards in the Temple
Alexander the Great
Diogenes
The New Attorney

The Building of a City
The Imperial Colonel
The Emperor
In the Caravanary
The Cell
The Invention of the Devil
The Savages
The Hunter Gracchus + Fragment
The Vulture
The Green Dragon
The Tiger
The Problem of Our Laws
The Refusal
Couriers
A Chinese Puzzle
The Truth about Sancho Panza
The Test
Robinson Crusoe
The Spring
The Hunger Strike
My Destination

Translations

Parables and Paradoxes brings together short texts from the wide variety of Kafka's works. Since different texts were handled by different translators this volume allows readers to compare the various ways Kafka's works have been rendered into English. The translators included are:

Clement Greenberg
Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins
Willa and Edwin Muir
Tania and James Stern

Franz Kafka (works)

Novels

The Trial
The Castle
Amerika

Short stories

1902–1912	"Shamefaced Lanky and Impure in Heart" "Description of a Struggle" "Wedding Preparations in the Country" "The Judgment" "The Stoker" The Metamorphosis "The Aeroplanes at Brescia"
1914–1917	"In the Penal Colony" "The Village Schoolmaster" "Before the Law" "Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor" "A Country Doctor" "The Hunter Gracchus" "The Great Wall of China" "A Message from the Emperor" "A Report to an Academy" "A Dream" "Up in the Gallery" "A Fratricide" "The Next Village" "A Visit to a Mine" "Jackals and Arabs" "The Bridge" "The Bucket Rider" "The New Advocate" "An Old Manuscript" "The Knock at the Manor Gate" "Eleven Sons" "My Neighbor" "A Crossbreed" "The Cares of a Family Man"
1917–1923	"The Refusal" "A Hunger Artist" "Investigations of a Dog" "A Little Woman" "The Burrow" "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk" "A Common Confusion" "The Truth about Sancho Panza" "The Silence of the Sirens" "Prometheus" "The City Coat of Arms" "Poseidon" "Fellowship" "At Night" "The Problem of Our Laws" "The Conscription of Troops" "The Test" "The Vulture" "The Helmsman" "The Top" "A Little Fable" "Homecoming" "First Sorrow" "The Departure" "Advocates" "The Married Couple" "Give It Up!" "On Parables"