One autumn day a hundred years ago, a small Berlin publishing house brought out a modest book that passed almost unnoticed. Its author was unknown—and, to make matters worse, already dead by the time of publication.
Today, Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial feels more urgent than ever. It opens with a line that has become one of the most unsettling in world literature: “Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.”
In its year of publication, 1925, the theme was already recognizable. Europe was sliding into an era of oppression and insecurity. That same year, Adolf Hitler was writing Mein Kampf in a Bavarian prison, and Josef Stalin was tightening his grip on power in the Soviet Union. Kafka had captured what was soon to become the fate of millions: to be accused without knowing why, and to die without ever being heard.