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KAFKAESQUE

Peter Kuper

Fourteen Short Stories

Award-winning graphic novelist Peter Kuper presents a mesmerizing interpretation of fourteen iconic Kafka short stories.
Long fascinated with the work of Franz Kafka, Peter Kuper began illustrating his stories in 1988. Initially drawn to the master's dark humor, Kuper adapted the stories over the years to plumb their deeper truths. Kuper's style deliberately evokes Lynd Ward and Frans Masereel, contemporaries of Kafka whose wordless novels captured much of the same claustrophobia and mania as Kafka's tales. Working from new translations of the classic texts, Kuper has reimagined these iconic stories for the twenty-first century, using setting and perspective to comment on contemporary issues like civil rights and homelessness. Longtime lovers of Kafka will appreciate Kuper's innovative interpretations, while Kafka novices will discover a haunting introduction to some of the great writer's most beguiling stories, including "A Hunger Artist," "In The Penal Colony," and "The Burrow." Kafkaesque stands somewhere between adaptation and wholly original creation, going beyond a simple illustration of Kafka's words to become a stunning work of art. Peter Kuper is a visiting professor at Harvard University. He frequently contributes cartoons to The New Yorker and is the illustrator of Mad magazine's "Spy vs. Spy." His previous graphic novel, Ruins, won an Eisner Award. He lives in New York.
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Published 2018-09-18 by W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. - New York (USA)

Comments

[Kuper] brilliantly accentuates both the absurd and menacing qualities of Kafka's short stories... Kuper's heavy use of chiaroscuro creates an atmosphere of dread, while his playful character design and innovative page layouts keenly evince Kafka's dark sense of humor. Kafka's timeless work has never hit so hard, nor more artfully.

Kafka's stories are dark and well suited for the black and white of Kafkaesque, yet, as Kuper reminds us, humor flickers through the darkness. Read more...

Kuper proves adept at using the synergy between text and image to both expand Kafka's ideas and trim his word counts... A richly innovative interpretation that honors the source while expanding the material.

Spanish: Sexto Piso ; Russian: Exem ; French: Çá et Lá ; Turkish: Versus Kitap

Woe to the reader who tries to skim Kafkaesque... [Kuper's] faux woodcuts, with their explosive faces and grim chiaroscuro, cannot be easily digested - a supreme virtue. Read more...

[Kuper] does what I love. Jazz. This book is a series of riffs, visual improvisations on short takes by the old master. It becomes a diverting, even daring, high-wire act, where Kafka's stoic Euro-alienation meets and merges with Kuper's thoroughly American rock-and-roll alienation.

A gorgeously illustrated collection that makes tales written nearly a century ago feel vibrant and vital.

While Kafka aficionados will savor enhanced perception, readers without prior knowledge will nevertheless appreciate Kuper's unflinching interpretations.