six translations of The Top by Kafka: 2015 edition

June 2015
sewn booklet
20 pages
128mm x 164mm

A re-set edition of a booklet that I originally wrote in 2002 - Six Translations of The Top by Kafka. The content of the booklet comprises six transliterations, in English, of an English translation of Kafka's short story, The Top (c. 1917-23). After the original story, the transliterations take, respectively, the following forms: same syllable count; a retelling through dictionary definitions; a retelling using the Oulipian standby of n+7 (replacing the story's nouns with the noun 7 words after it in a chosen dictionary); an anagram of the original; a version using the same syntax and punctuation, and lastly a version using the same syntax. The covers use the pages from some wonderful 1880s legal blue paper I found, whose lines of convoluted legalese seem just right for the content.