Parabeln und Paradoxe (1961)

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.

Contents

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