By Susan Bernofsky
The New Yorker - January 15, 2014
This essay is adapted from the afterword to the author’s new translation of “The Metamorphosis,” by Franz Kafka.
Kafka’s celebrated novella The Metamorphosis (Die Verwandlung)
was written a century ago, in late 1912, during a period in which he
was having difficulty making progress on his first novel. On November
17, 1912, Kafka wrote to his fiancée Felice Bauer that he was working on
a story that “came to me in my misery lying in bed” and now was
haunting him. He hoped to get it written down quickly—he hadn’t yet
realized how long it would be—as he felt it would turn out best if he
could write it in just one or two long sittings. But there were many
interruptions, and he complained to Felice several times that the delays
were damaging the story. Three weeks later, on December 7, it was
finished, though it would be another three years before the story saw
print.
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