America | Franz Kafka

America, unfinished novel by Franz Kafka, written between 1912 and 1914 and prepared for publication by Max Brod in 1927, three years after the author’s death. The manuscript was entitled Der Verschollene (“The Lost One”). Kafka had published the first chapter separately under the title Der Heizer (“The Stoker”) in 1913.

The narrative concerns the efforts of young Karl Rossmann, newly arrived in America, to find his place in an enigmatic and hostile society. The account of his expulsion from his parents’ household in Prague following an affair with the family cook exhibits the surreal distortion of memory that characterizes much of Kafka’s best work. Early scenes of Karl’s passage to America, during which he encounters the ship’s dejected stoker, are similarly stylized. The narration becomes increasingly conventional, however, in the later sections recounting Karl’s exploitation by relatives, acquaintances, and strangers. The novel break off just as the protagonist has seemingly found his niche with the traveling Oklahoma Theater

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