Kafka Judaism, Politics, and Literature [Paperback]

Focusing on Kafka's sense of Jewish identity and knowledge of Judaism, Robertson elucidates the subtle but profound ways in which Jewish religion and culture influenced Kafka's work.

Deserves and will certainly obtain a wide readership among Kafka scholars....A useful and provocative source of information about Kafka's religious and political milieu. --Journal of Religion

The tone and comprehensiveness of [Robertson's] study establish it as a major contribution to our understanding of the totality of Kafka's impact and importance as a writer. Thus for both the general reader interested in Kafka as well as for the specialist, Robertson's work is indispensable....[An] excellent analysis. --The German Quarterly

Sets Kafka firmly into the literary and cultural context of his time and place, using a gratifyingly wide variety of pertinent literary, historical, political, philosophical and religious texts with scholarly acumen, tact and flair. It not only enhances our understanding of Kafka's art, but also increases our respect for his determined grappling with such ultimate problems as the disjunction or disharmony of consciousness and being, individual aspiration and social bondage, man's innate religious need and his endemic inability to reach that solid assurance of metaphysical truth for which he longs. --Times Literary Supplement. An important book that every Kafka scholar will want to--and need to--read. --German Studies Review.

Certainly one of the most important studies on Kafka to appear in the last five to ten years....It is sensitive to different theoretical, comparative, and sociological issues. Lucid discussions of recent genre theory precede generic consideration of individual texts....Also, Robertson is very sensitive throughout to the narratological problem of shifting narrative points of view as well as to women's issues pertinent to Kafka's writings....He succeeds brilliantlyl#ƒ