The Modern World: Ten Great Writers — Season 1, Episode 10: Franz Kafka: The Trial

Episode synopsis

A suppressor of his own writings, Franz Kafka even requested that upon his death all his extant works be destroyed—yet those very works accurately prefigured the anxieties and alienation so commonly associated with the latter part of the 20th century. This program delves into Kafka’s fictional world, primarily through a gripping dramatization of The Trial, a combination of simple tale and complex parable describing Joseph K.’s bizarre arrest and execution. Professor George Steiner, of Geneva University, sheds light on the wellsprings of Kafka’s disturbingly prescient vision.

About The Modern World: Ten Great Writers

This documentary series uses drama and commentary to shed light on the lives and works of Joseph Conrad, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, T. S. Eliot, Henrik Ibsen, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Luigi Pirandello, Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf.

More episodes from Season 1

• E1James Joyce: Ulysses
• E2Joseph Conrad: The Secret Agent
• E3Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 'Crime and Punishment'
• E4Marcel Proust: A la recherche du temps perdu
• E5Thomas Mann: The Magic Mountain
• E6Henrik Ibsen: The Master Playwright
• E7Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway
• E8Luigi Pirandello: In Search of an Author
• E9T.S. Eliot: The Waste Land
• E11Ten Great Writers: The Seminar