
The Stranger
A clerk in Algiers kills a man, then faces a court more interested in his behavior at his mother’s funeral.
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by Franz Kafka
An impossible transformation is treated as an ordinary crisis of work, family, and usefulness.
Franz Kafka’s 1915 novella begins when Gregor Samsa wakes transformed and follows the practical and emotional consequences inside his family home.
Kafka uses calm, practical prose to make an absurd situation reveal the obligations and cruelties inside a family.

A clerk in Algiers kills a man, then faces a court more interested in his behavior at his mother’s funeral.
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The doctor of the Paris slums who wrote the century's blackest, funniest novel — and changed the sound of French prose.
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French Algerian novelist, essayist, journalist and playwright who used the absurd and revolt to ask how people should live without false consolation.
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