«The trial» in German with a Parallel Translation

The Trial is a novel written by Franz Kafka between 1914 and 1915 and published posthumously on 26 April 1925. This is one of his most famous works. It tells the story of Joseph K., a man arrested and persecuted by the authorities. The nature of his crime is hidden from the reader and the hero himself. Heavily influenced by Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, Kafka even went so far as to call Dostoevsky a blood relative. Like Kafka's other novels, The Trial was never completed, although it does include a chapter which appears to bring the story to an intentionally abrupt ending.