Kafka was a Jewish Czech writer who wrote in the early 20th century in German, but in many ways his work prefigures the Magical Realist movement. That's because Kafka's texts are full of fantastic events that happen in seemingly mundane situations. Strange things happen all the time to his characters, and the world of his they live in often doesn't make sense.

Kafka was a Jew living in Europe in the lead-up to World War II and the Holocaust, and the fantastic happenings in his works often allude to the crazy situation that Jews found themselves in at the time.

"The Metamorphosis"

A guy called Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to find himself turned into a cockroach. The story gives no explanation for Gregor's transformation: we just watch as Gregor struggles to get himself out of bed, open the door, and try to talk to his family. His family, of course, is horrified. You probably would be, too, if your brother had suddenly turned into a giant bug.

This story's got many of the hallmarks of the Magic Realist style. There's the matter-of-fact narrative voice as well as the sequence of fantastic events, and it's all mixed in with a good dose of the mundane: the whole story takes place right in the family home.

The Trial

In this novel by Kafka, a man is arrested and put on trial. The problem is: he doesn't know what crime he's being prosecuted for, and we readers are never told, either. It all seems absurd and crazy, but that's the whole point: life is kind of absurd and crazy sometimes.

There's enough mundane detail in the novel to keep us grounded, but that doesn't change the fact that world this novel depicts is unpredictable, it's turned upside down, it's irrational. Things here just don't make sense.

Chew on This:

Kafka's Metamorphosis: it's a story about a guy who wakes up as a bug. Need we say more?

In Kafka's world, absurd things happen all the time. In The Trial, a man finds himself prosecuted for a crime. The catch is he's never told what crime he's being accused of.