Literary roundup: Kafka’s latest metamorphosis

Kafka’s work has been transformed into many, many things. There are of course film and TV adaptations, graphic novels and the like. I’m sure there’s a Franz Kafka action figure and probably one of a bug with a backdrop of Prague. There was even a porn star (okay, maybe actor – I have no idea if he ever achieved stardom) named Gregor Samsa. In short, Kafka’s influence has spread far beyond the initial audience it was intended for.

Kafka’s newest audience – kids! My First Kafka is an illustrated Kafka book for children, though as with most adaptations (excepting the interpretations of the abovementioned Mr. Samsa), there is very little of the original Kafka left. Well, who knows, maybe kids will like it? And the illustrations look pretty good. Read more about the book here.

Kafka (not) in Belarus

Belarusian anarchist Aliaksandr Frantskievich was sentenced to three years in prison for allegedly attacking a police station, a Trade Union building and hacking a municipality’s website. When his mother recently sent him a care package of books it was returned. Here is Tatsiana Frantskievich’s comment, as reported on the Charter 97 website:

“I do not know why they did not allow it. I received this parcel back, although the lawyer had been recently told at the colony that fiction books may be sent. They warned not to send only philosophic and political books, but now they have forbidden fiction as well. Maybe they did not allow Dovlatov, because he wrote about Soviet concentration camps, where he served as a guard? But I cannot imagine, why they did not allow Kafka.”