Kafka in America

April 30 | Austrian Cultural Forum | NYC

With Louis Begley, Norbert Gstrein, Mark Harman, Lynne Tillman, and Colm Tóibín; moderated by Jonathan Taylor

Of Franz Kafka’s three uncompleted novels, Amerika—or, as he envisioned the title, The Missing Person—is likely the least read, and often thought of as the least characteristic. Mark Harman’s new English translation, Amerika: The Missing Person, is an opportunity to revisit this book and discover how it can deepen our understanding of Kafka. For the book’s main character, Karl Rossmann, the ultramodern America was a place of banishment as well as of possible refuge. Karl’s troubled journey through a land of “restless motion, and unrest borne from the restless element to helpless men and their works,” emerges as a supreme example of Kafka’s reimagination of the world.

Co-sponsored by the Austrian Cultural Forum