The Trial at 10: How Kafka’s novel foreshadowed 20th century totalitarianism

Officially, Franz Kafka’s finest novel, The Trial , turns 100 this year. Unofficially, the book is a little older than it lets on. Kafka abandoned work on it in 1915, deeming it unfit for publication. A fanatically self-critical man, he published only a handful of novellas and short stories in his lifetime. He dismissed his longer efforts, including The Trial , as “bungled pieces of work”. Shortly before he died in 1924, Kafka left instructions for his unpublished works to be “burned unread and to the last page”.

The Trial by Franz Kafka was published in 1925.

Fortunately for the world, Kafka’s literary executor, Max Brod, disobeyed his friend’s orders. Among Kafka’s papers Brod found three more-or-less complete novels: Amerika , The Trial and The Castle . In the years immediat