December 1st, 2008 / 5:09 pm
 Author Spotlight

ALL THIS WEEK: Sympathy for the Cubicle Rat at Nextbook.org, starring Franz Kafka and Joshua Cohen

not Joshua Cohen. Or Kafka.

 >>This event—finally, the translation and publication of the last known scrap of Kafka’s work left untranslated, and unpublished—brings us to the subject of this series: how Kafka’s office writings influenced his fiction, and what that influence means. Kafka’s office writings, as presented here, cannot be read on their own (they are incomprehensibly boring) but, instead, must be read as companions, to demystify the three novels and stories (which are anything but boring). Taken together, though, both workaday fact and masterwork fiction create a network of connections that exposes not just the concerns of a single writer, but also that of a singular culture — the culture of the Office, which has imposed itself on what used to be our lives. <<

Check back at Nextbook.org every day this week for a new installment of Joshua Cohen’s writing about Kafka’s Office Writings. Also, there may be periodic updates here, highlighting our favorite pieces from the series and/or reminding you to go read it. 

Who could say no to this mug?

 

Or this bug?

Or this bug?

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4 Comments

  1. December 1st, 2008 / 9:43 pm Jimmy Chen—

      wow, i read the table of contents and am extremely excited to read the documents

  2. December 1st, 2008 / 5:43 pm Jimmy Chen—

      wow, i read the table of contents and am extremely excited to read the documents

  3. December 1st, 2008 / 5:55 pm pr—

      i recently bought his diaries and did not get so far in them, i love his fiction…i tried reading him in German. That was hard going. This cohen thing seems maybe interesting, but I don’t like the “what used to be our lives…”

      many many people are very grateful for their office jobs. so that part i didn’t like.

  4. December 1st, 2008 / 9:55 pm pr—

      i recently bought his diaries and did not get so far in them, i love his fiction…i tried reading him in German. That was hard going. This cohen thing seems maybe interesting, but I don’t like the “what used to be our lives…”

      many many people are very grateful for their office jobs. so that part i didn’t like.