The Contexts of Kafka: Dystopia, Phantasy, Multiculturalism

Abstract

The process of “canonization”at the level of world literature is slow and difficult. In the case of Franz Kafka it has begun, albeit in a rather disorderly fashion, by “hit-and-miss”comparisons. The present article does not claim to be exhaustive. However, it proposes threelevels of understanding that would help us to assimilate the works of Kafka into “Weltliteratur”. The first is the inclusion of Kafka into the abundant dystopian writing of the first half of the 20thcentury. The second is the area of the phantastic, not in as far as it preceded Kafka, but in the ways in which it allowed specific Kafkian techniques to be taken over creatively by writers of the second half of the 20thcentury. The third is the suggestion that we can note some analogies between Kafka's works and major literary productions of non-Western cultures. I consider that in adopting my proposal we make some useful steps forward in our understanding of Franz Kafka's universal appeal.