Kafka Americana

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Kafka Americana
First edition cover
Author	Jonathan Lethem Carter Scholz
Cover artist	Jacket design by Zwetana Penova Cover illustration by Perry Hoberman
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Short stories, pastiche, parody
Publisher	Subterranean Press
Publication date	November 1999
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages	100 pp (first edition, hardcover)
ISBN	ISBN 1-892284-43-X (first edition, hardcover)
OCLC	43333743
Preceded by	Motherless Brooklyn
Followed by	The Fortress of Solitude (novel)

Kafka Americana is a 1999 collection of short stories by Jonathan Lethem and Carter Scholz based on the life (and alternate histories) and works of Franz Kafka. Originally published in a limited edition by Subterranean Press, it was released as a trade paperback by W. W. Norton & Company in 2001.

The stories

"Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor" (Scholz)

A re-imagining of Kafka's uncompleted short story. First published in Crank! 1.

"The Notebooks of Bob K." (Lethem)

Batman is presented as Kafka's creation, with parodies of some of Kafka's famous aphorisms and stories, including "The Burrow", "A Crossbreed (A Sport)", and "The Vulture". A significantly different version of the story appeared in Gas 6.

"Receding Horizon" (Lethem & Scholz)

Kafka comes to America, changes his name to Jack Dawson, and writes screenplays in Hollywood. First published in Crank! 5.

"The Amount to Carry" (Scholz)

Kafka meets fellow insurance executives Wallace Stevens and Charles Ives. First published in Starlight 2.

"K. for Fake" (Lethem)

Parody of The Trial. First published in McSweeney's Quarterly 4.

References

Lethem, Jonathan and Carter Scholz. Kafka Americana. W. W. Norton & Company, 2001. ISBN 0-393-32253-X

v t e Jonathan Lethem

Novels	Gun, with Occasional Music Amnesia Moon As She Climbed Across the Table Girl in Landscape Motherless Brooklyn The Fortress of Solitude You Don't Love Me Yet Chronic City Dissident Gardens

Collections	The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye Kafka Americana Men and Cartoons How We Got Insipid

Non-fiction	Believeniks!: 2005: The Year We Wrote a Book About the Mets The Disappointment Artist They Live The Ecstasy of Influence: Nonfictions, Etc. The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick Talking Heads' Fear of Music

Comics	Omega the Unknown

Co-authors	Carter Scholz Christopher Sorrentino

v t e Adaptations of works by Franz Kafka

Feature films	The Trial (USA 1962) The Castle (Germany 1968) Class Relations (from Amerika; Germany 1984) Kafka (USA 1991) The Trial (USA 1993) The Castle (Russia/Germany/France 1994) The Castle (Germany 1997) K (USA/Iran/Morocco 2002)

Short films	Metamorphosis (Germany 1975) Metamorphosis (Sweden 1976) The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa (Canada 1977) Metamorphosis (UK 1987) Franz Kafka (Poland 1992) Description of a Struggle (USA 1993) Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life (UK 1993) Zoetrope (from "In the Penal Colony"; USA 2000) The Hunger Artist (USA 2002) Metamorphosis (Russia 2002) Human Body (from "A Country Doctor"; Germany 2004) Kafka goes to the Forest (Brazil 2009) Eleven sons (Spain 2010)

Literature	Kafka Americana

Comics	Give It Up! The Metamorphosis Introducing Kafka Il Processo di Franz Kafka

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