The Trial
Schocken Books · first published 1925 · 304 pages
A bank officer is arrested one morning by men who will not tell him the charge, and is then left free to go on working.
The bureaucracy is absurd and courteous at once, and each dim office and attic courtroom adds to a dreamlike unease.
For a night when sleep won't come.
About this book
On the morning of his thirtieth birthday, Josef K., a senior officer at a bank, is told he is under arrest, though no one will say for what. He tries to fight the case through a lawyer, a painter with connections and several women who seem to know the court. The more he learns, the larger and more shapeless the court becomes. This translation follows the restored text of Kafka's unfinished manuscript.