From a man who metamorphoses into an insect to a banker arrested on unspecified charges by a mysterious court, Franz Kafka's fiction vividly evokes bizarre, almost surrealistic situations. Attending both to Kafka's crisis-ridden life and to the subtleties of his art, Ritchie Robertson shows how his work explores such characteristically modern themes as the place of the body in culture, the power of institutions over people, and the possibility of religion. The result is an accessible portrait of a fascinating author that helps us understand his perplexing, absorbing work.