"Neurotic misery... is the making of many a writer"

“Kafka ‘toyed’ with death to the extent that his great writings may be seen as a sort of highly imaginative rehearsal for the end of all things: little suicides, if you like. Metamorphosis is the most vivid — the saddest, most ghastly and unforgettable — of them all.”
 — Some thoughts on what may be the 20th Century’s greatest work of short fiction.