Kafka's travels : exoticism, colonialism, and the traffic of writing / John Zilcosky.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Zilcosky, John, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Voyages and travels--Pictorial works.

Voyages and travels.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (XVII, 289 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Palgrave Macmillan, [2003]

Summary:

In 1916, Kafka writes of The Sugar Baron , a dime-store colonial adventure novel, '[it] affects me so deeply that I feel it is about myself, or as if it were the book of rules for my life.' John Zilcosky reveals that this perhaps surprising statement - made by the Prague-bound poet of modern isolation - is part of a network of remarks that exemplify Kafka's ongoing preoccupation with popular travel writing, exoticism, and colonial fantasy. Taking this biographical peculiarity as a starting point, Kafka's Travels elegantly re-reads Kafka's major works ( Amerika , The Trial , The Castle ) through the lens of fin-de siecle travel culture. Making use of previously unexplored literary and cultural materials - travel diaries, train schedules, tour guides, adventure novels - Zilcosky argues that Kafka's uniquely modern metaphorics of alienation emerges out of the author's complex encounter with the utopian travel discourses of his day.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781137076373

1137076372