In the Penal Colony

By Franz Kafka

The story is set in an unnamed penal colony. Internal clues and the setting on an island suggest Octave Mirbeau's The Torture Garden as an influence. As in some of Kafka's other writings, the narrator in this story seems detached from, or perhaps numbed by, events that one would normally expect to be registered with horror. In the Penal Colony describes the last use of an elaborate torture and execution device that carves the sentence of the condemned prisoner on his skin in a script before letting him die, all in the course of twelve hours. As the plot unfolds, the reader learns more and more about the machine, including its origin, and original justification.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sheba Blake Publishing
• Release date: Mar 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781304835802

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka was born to Jewish parents in Bohemia in 1883. Kafka’s father was a luxury goods retailer who worked long hours and as a result never became close with his son. Kafka’s relationship with his father greatly influenced his later writing and directly informed his Brief an den Vater (Letter to His Father). Kafka had a thorough education and was fluent in both German and Czech. As a young man, he was hired to work at an insurance company where he was quickly promoted despite his desire to devote his time to writing rather than insurance. Over the course of his life, Kafka wrote a great number of stories, letters, and essays, but burned the majority of his work before his death and requested that his friend Max Brod burn the rest. Brod, however, did not fulfill this request and published many of the works in the years following Kafka’s death of tuberculosis in 1924. Thus, most of Kafka’s works were published posthumously, and he did not live to see them recognized as some of the most important examples of literature of the twentieth century. Kafka’s works are considered among the most significant pieces of existentialist writing, and he is remembered for his poignant depictions of internal conflicts with alienation and oppression. Some of Kafka’s most famous works include The Metamorphosis, The Trial and The Castle.

Reviews for In the Penal Colony

[mahallett · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

why is kafka revered? he's so boring, so structured.

[la2bkk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In true Kafka style, this is a compelling work subject to many different interpretations. Is it an allegory about the demise of religious belief, or a totalitarian government, etc? Your guess is as good as mine. A fascinating and grisly short story about a 19th century penal colony and various persons response to a horrific execution device.

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The novella is standard Kafka although not quite as depressing as some, but definitely as absurd. The condemnation of a man to execution without benefit of trial or defense is the kind of thing that is taken matter-of-factly in Kafka's world. And the delight shown in describing the execution device by the executioner is downright chilling.

[goddamn_phony · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Guilt, fear, punishment, retribution. The desperation of the common man in the face of power. All were tattooed into Kafka's psyche and are recurrent themes in everything he wrote. In this grim little book, crimes are literally tattooed onto the skin of convicts until they experience enlightenment, and then they die.

[heidilove_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

stop before you get through all of these. most folks get this volumen because of the oft-lauded and popularized-by-high-school Metomorphosis. Certainly don't read them all in a row, and not all in a row in one weekend. [i might never be the same, and i can't say it's for the better, but my teenage angst just ate it up.]

[c_why · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Metamorphosis is good.