'A high-spirited, richly informed, and original portrait, a cross between biography, literary analysis and a study in modern canonisation: Karolina Watroba is an inspired guide and her book a pleasure to read.' Marina Warner'A rich account of what modern readers have made of Kafka ... finds room not only for the many sides of him but for a whole sm¿rg¿ord of legacies and afterlives that explode the clich¿f the Kafkaesque' ObserverFranz Kafka was one of the most influential, and enigmatic, writers of the twentieth century. His books, with their mysterious courts and monstrous insects, have had an influential reach across literature, music, art and film. But who, exactly, was Franz Kafka?Karolina Watroba tells Kafka's story beyond the boundaries of language, time and space, travelling from the Prague of Kafka's birth through the work of contemporary writers in East Asia, whose award-winning novels are in part homages to the great man himself. Metamorphoses is a non-chronological journey