THE JESSICA JOURNALS

Franz Kafka's tragic allegory for dehumanisation takes our October book club spot. Context Written in early 20th-century Prague, during the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where Kafka lived as a German-speaking Jew in a predominantly Czech-speaking city, the novella perhaps draws from Kafka’s experience of cultural isolation. He was surrounded by rising anti-Semitism and tension between Czechs, Germans and Jews. This unrest manifests itself in Gregor Samsa, the protagonist. Kafka wa