Kafka

Toward a Minor Literature

1986

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Authors:

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari
Translated by Dana Polan
Foreword by Réda Bensmaïa

Instead of interpreting Kafka’s work according to pre-existing categories or literary genres, they propose a concept of “minor literature”—the use of a major language that subverts it from within.

Tags

Theory and Philosophy, Literature, Continental, Literary and Cultural Theory

Writing as a Jew in Prague, Kafka makes German “take flight on a line of escape” and joyfully becomes a strager within it. Deleuze and Guattari explore unique concepts, which provide a means for understanding aspects of Kafka’s work that have previously been either ignored or misunderstood.

Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) was professor of philosophy at the University of Paris, Vincennes–St. Denis. He coauthored Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus with Félix Guattari. These works, as well as Cinema 1, Cinema 2, The Fold, Proust and Signs, and others, are published in English by Minnesota.

Daniel W. Smith teaches in the Department of Philosophy at Purdue University.