"Kafka wrote in the tradition of the great Yiddish storytellers, whose stock-in-trade was bizarre fantasy, tainted with hilarity and self-abasement. What he brought to this tradition was, however, an almost unbearably expanded consciousness. Alienated from his roots, his family, his surroundings, and primarily from his own body, Kafka created a unique literary language in which to hide away, transforming himself into a cockroach, an ape, a dog, a mole or a circus artiste who starves himself to death before admiring crowds. "--Provided by publisher.