Kafka's Indictment of Modern Law

The legal system is often denounced as “Kafkaesque”—but what does this really mean? This is the question Douglas E. Litowitz tackles in his critical reading of Franz Kafka’s writings about the law.

Going far beyond Kafka’s most familiar works—such as The Trial—Litowitz assembles a broad array of works that he refers to as “Kafka’s legal fiction”—consisting of published and unpublished works that deal squarely with the law, as well as those that touch upon it indirectly, as in political, admi...