THIS VOLUME HAS COME into being at the initiative of James Hardin, whose vision for his Series is compelling: the best possible scholars are to be invited to write original essays that advance literary scholarship, while at the same time asking the broad questions that interest readers who are not scholars. With a single author, such as Franz Kafka, it is also essential to offer an overall account of his career, bringing all major texts into view. I have been fortunate indeed that such an eminent group of Kafka scholars accepted my invitation. And Kafka himself makes it easy to embrace Dr. Hardin’s multiple goals: no critical issue concerning Kafka’s work stays obscure for long, since his sentences have a way of addressing, directly and disconcertingly, the daily lives of subsequent generations.

We are particularly fortunate to have Walter Sokel’s meditation on his “life of reading Kafka,” which has also meant reading a half century of Kafka criticism — the ever renewed struggle to make “sense” of Kafka’s potent enigmas. With slight modifications Sokel’s essay also introduces his new collection of Kafka-essays, The Myth of Power and the Self (2002); I am grateful to Arthur Evans, director of the Wayne State University Press, for facilitating this dual event.

The present book has benefited from the close critical reading of James Walker, senior editor at Camden House: his probing queries were widely welcomed by the contributors. Finally I want to thank my outstanding assistant, Eleanor Johnson, whose command of both technology and style have been indispensable.