{"product_id":"mr-kafka","title":"Mr. Kafka","description":"Never before published in English, the stories in \u003cem\u003eMr. Kafka and Other Tales from the Time of the Cult\u003c\/em\u003e were written mostly in the 1950s and present the Czech master Bohumil Hrabal at the height of his powers. The stories capture a time when Czech Stalinists were turning society upside down, inflicting their social and political experiments on mostly unwilling subjects. These stories are set variously in the gas-lit streets of post-war Prague; on the raucous and dangerous factory floor of the famous Poldi steelworks where Hrabal himself once worked; in a cacophonous open-air dance hall where classical and popular music come to blows; at the basement studio where a crazed artist attempts to fashion a national icon; on the scaffolding around a decommissioned church. Hrabal captures men and women trapped in an eerily beautiful nightmare, longing for a world where \"humor and metaphysical escape can reign supreme.\"","brand":"New Directions Publishing Corporation","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48833664483533,"sku":"9780811224802","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0557\/1529\/9533\/files\/imageloader_c8413d34-7b6a-4df8-9354-9d479749c2b9.jpg?v=1790892748","url":"https:\/\/booksatmidnight.com\/products\/mr-kafka","provider":"Books At Midnight","version":"1.0","type":"link"}