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Sought out by leading avant-garde publishers, Kafka reluctantly published a few of his writings during his lifetime. These publications include two sections (1909) from Beschreibung eines Kampfes (1936; Description of a Struggle); Betrachtung (1913; Meditation), a collection of short prose pieces; and other works representative of Kafka's maturity as an artist—The Judgment, a long story written in 1912; two further long stories, Die Verwandlung (1915; The Metamorphosis) and In der Strafkolonie (1919; In the Penal Colony); and a collection of short prose, Ein Landarzt (1919; A Country Doctor). Ein Hungerkünstler (1924; A Hunger Artist), four stories exhibiting the concision and lucidity characteristic of Kafka's late style, had been prepared by the author but did not appear until after his death. In fact, misgivings about his work caused Kafka before his death to request that all of his unpublished manuscripts be destroyed; his literary executor, Max Brod, disregarded his instructions. Brod published the novels The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika in 1925, 1926, and 1927, respectively; and a collection of shorter pieces, Beim Bau der chinesischen Mauer (The Great Wall of China), in 1931. Such early works by Kafka as Description of a Struggle (begun about 1904) and Meditation, though their style is more concretely imaged and their structure more incoherent than that of the later works, are already original in a characteristic way. The characters in these works fail to establish communication with others; they follow a hidden logic that flouts normal, everyday logic; their world erupts in grotesque incidents and violence. Each character is only an anguished voice, vainly questing for information and understanding of the world and for a way to believe in his own identity and purpose. --encyclopedia Britannica