The Diaries of Franz Kafka

One of the finest translating achievements in recent history * Literary Review *
A new translation of the writer’s diaries from his twenties restores them to how he wrote them: chaotic, sometimes incoherent and full of black comedy. Thrilling … The diaries will open your eyes -- John Self * The Times *
An unprecedented, almost 600-page peephole into the mind of a writer whose published prose is otherwise classically abstract and inscrutable. It’s some secret to be let into -- Tanjil Rashid * FT *
This new edition restores the variegated richness of the diaries ... Here Kafka seems both genius and ingenue, and the contradiction brings him closer to us * Guardian *
This edition of the Diaries seems a model of both scrupulousness and generosity. Here we find the unpolished inner life of one of the most significant writers that ever lived; and the entries, which come from the mind of an ordinary human being and not from some otherworldly realm of inner consciousness, do not in any way detract from Kafka’s work -- Nicholas Lezard * The Spectator *
Essential . . . The new volume, in a sensitive and briskly idiomatic translation by Ross Benjamin, offers revelation upon revelation. It’s an invaluable addition to Kafka’s oeuvre -- Dwight Garner * The New York Times *
Momentous . . . Life also bursts into literature at the level of form, and in Kafka’s diaries even the words are acrobatic. As Ross Benjamin notes in the thoughtful introduction to his new translation, his aim is to capture the extent to which the diaries were a 'laboratory for Kafka’s literary production' and thereby catch the author 'in the act of writing.' He has succeeded. Everything in the diaries thrashes . . . [They] are the intimate incisions of an author who could write only by etching words into the flesh -- Becca Rothfield * The New Yorker *
Benjamin, whose translation is the first complete and uncensored edition of the Diaries to be made available to an English readership . . . begins from scratch the whole business of restoring to the notebooks their 'provisionality, materiality, and mutability . . [His] aim is to give us the writer in his 'workshop,' blotting the page, changing his mind, running at a sentence a dozen times and still not getting it right -- Frances Wilson * The New York Review of Books *
Readers will welcome this new edition of the Diaries, complete, uncensored, in a fluent translation by Ross Benjamin, and supplemented with 78 pages of invaluable notes, the fruit of half a century of Kafka scholarship -- J. M. Coetzee * author of Disgrace *
This new and scrupulously faithful translation of the Diaries brings us, unembellished by theory, the true inner life of the twentieth century’s most complex and enigmatic literary prophet, whose very name has come to us as symbol and vision of innocent vulnerability in the face of irrational force -- Cynthia Ozick * author of Antiquities *
Franz Kafka’s inner life has always been a bit of a mystery. The expurgated diaries in their original German and English versions hinted at his complicated, often confused relationship to sex, politics, illness, and being Jewish. This readable new translation of the complete German version of the diary transforms the silent Kafka of a century ago into a Kafka not only of his times but of ours -- Sander Gilman * author of Franz Kafka, The Jewish Patient *
Thirty two years after their original publication in German, Franz Kafka's complete Diaries are here in Ross Benjamin's outstanding translation ... Now we have in English some of the most intimate reflections and literary experiments of one of the towering geniuses of modern literature -- Saul Friedländer * author of Franz Kafka: The Poet of Shame and Guilt *
A fresh, unadulterated translation of Kafka’s notebooks, dense with introspection and writerly despair . . . The attraction of Kafka’s diaries has always been his coruscating descriptions of his existential struggles as a writer and human being. He captures his frustration in ways that are wrenching, vivid, and highly quotable * Kirkus Reviews *
Finally! Three decades after the publication of the critical edition of Franz Kafka's diaries in Germany, English readers can now 'catch Kafka in the act of writing,' thanks to this monumental endeavor by translator Ross Benjamin. This new volume offers us Kafka's singular perspective and delivers an expanded window into Kafka's unique personality. The intricately researched and detailed Notes (75 pages of them!) provide us with a wealth of knowledge and context. For those of us in thrall to Kafka the Man as well as the Writer, the Notes add layers of life to Kafka's world and milieu and reveal a new depth and richness to Kafka's humanity. This new volume is an essential addition to the library of every serious student and reader of Kafka -- Kathi Diamant * author of Kafka's Last Love and director of the Kafka Project *
Mr. Benjamin’s translation doesn’t just supplant the previous edition — it inaugurates a new phase of Kafka’s afterlife in English . . . The writing glimmers with sensitivity, and openness to the world -- Max Norman * The Wall Street Journal *
Ross Benjamin has given the literary world an incredible treasure in this thoughtful edition. Kafka has never been so fully present, both as a man and a writer -- Marissa Moss * New York Journal of Books *
Ross Benjamin’s momentous new translation is the first to convey the full extent of the twitchy tenuousness [of Kafka’s diaries] -- Becca Rothfeld * The New Yorker *
This unabridged volume of Franz Kafka's diaries restores the rough edges and impulses that were buffed out of past editions * The New York Times *