Introducing Kafka, also known as Kafka for Beginners, is an illustrated biography of Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...

 by David Zane Mairowitz

David Zane Mairowitz

David Zane Mairowitz , is a writer. He studied English Literature and Philosophy at Hunter College, New York, and Drama at the University of California, Berkeley.In 1966 he emigrated to England, where he worked as a freelance writer...

 and Robert Crumb

Robert Crumb

Robert Dennis Crumb —known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded...

. The book includes comic adaptations of some of Kafka's most famous works including The Metamorphosis

The Metamorphosis

The Metamorphosis is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It is often cited as one of the seminal works of short fiction of the 20th century and is widely studied in colleges and universities across the western world...

, "A Hunger Artist

A Hunger Artist

"A Hunger Artist" , also translated as "A Fasting Artist" and "A Starvation Artist", is a short story by Franz Kafka published in Die Neue Rundschau in 1922. The story was also included in the collection A Hunger Artist published by Verlag Die Schmiede soon after Kafka's death...

", "In the Penal Colony

In the Penal Colony

"In the Penal Colony" is a short story by Franz Kafka written in German in October 1914, revised in November 1918, and first published in October 1919....

", and "The Judgment

The Judgment

"The Judgment" is a short story written by Franz Kafka in 1912. It is about the relationship between a man and his father.-Plot summary:...

", as well as brief sketches of his three novels The Trial

The Trial

The Trial is a novel by Franz Kafka, first published in 1925. One of Kafka's best-known works, it tells the story of a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed neither to him nor the reader.Like Kafka's other novels, The Trial was never...

, The Castle, and Amerika

Amerika

- Places :* Amerika, Saxony, a town in Germany* Amerika, Drenthe, a hamlet in the Netherlands- Literature :* Amerika , a 2010 film by Tito Joe* Amerika , a 1927 novel by Franz Kafka...

. The book also details Kafka's biography in a format that is part illustrated essay, part sequential comic panels. The book was released as part of the "Introducing..." series by Totem Books which also features a volume each on Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...

 and Wilhelm Reich

Wilhelm Reich

Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry...

. The popularity of Crumb's renditions of Kafka's works led to additional printings under the title R. Crumb's Kafka. Its most recent edition by Fantagraphics Books

Fantagraphics Books

Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, magazines, graphic novels, and the adult-oriented Eros Comix imprint...

(2007) is simply titled Kafka.

Editions

• Mairowitz, David Zane (writer) and Robert Crumb (illustrator). Introducing Kafka. New York: Totem Books, 1993. ISBN 1-8404-6122-5
• Mairowitz, David Zane (writer) and Robert Crumb (illustrator). R. Crumb's Kafka. ibooks graphic novels, 2005. ISBN 1-5968-7812-6