Franz Kafka was a connoisseur of the absurd. On the centennial of his death, 10 modern masters of fiction have created this collection of peculiar short stories that blend genre, style, and storytelling. The tales in the collection--including a nightmarish text-message exchange, a science-fiction reimagining of the tower of Babel, and a play put on entirely by "a wisdom" of punctuation marks--sit inside the anxieties of our time and of all times, much like Kafka's work.
The inane madness of bureaucracy proliferates in these stories, which poke fun at the mundanity, stupidity, and crassness of those in charge. In Elif Batuman's "The Board," readers tour a dwelling that is not much more than a hole in the ground, but the protagonist who seeks to live there is stymied by the titular board whose approval must be obtained before they will hand over the keys. The board pokes and prods, raising awareness of the protagonist's "qualifications to live," and by the end readers are as exhausted as the main character, for they too have seen the horrors of simply existing in today's world.
The writing in this collection is deft, self-referential, horrifying, and funny. In one story, the protagonist asks "just who, and what, is a museum for? And [are] we really ready to have this conversation?" Here readers can ask, who is Kafka for? A Cage Went in Search of a Bird is ready to have that very conversation. --Dominic Charles Howarth, book manager, Book + Bottle