Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis is the best book I have read about multiple sclerosis, and that is because it is about so much more… It is simply a beautiful piece of writing. * The Times *A pitch-perfect memoir: stylish, erudite, touchingly honest and darkly funny. – Jacqueline Wilson, author of The Story of Tracy BeakerAn outstanding feat of bravery and brio… A buoyantly written, piercingly perceptive book. * Sunday Times *A beautiful and devastating portrayal of a life-changing diagnosis… It is what the best writing should be: a book that will stay with you for life. – Natalie Haynes, author of A Thousand ShipsThe writing is all elegance and wit. * The Times, 2023’s Top 50 Non-Fiction Books *An account of living with multiple sclerosis that is both deeply literary and painfully honest as it charts his journey into ill health. * Financial Times, Summer Reads of 2023 *Heartening and unexpectedly gripping… An immensely powerful book… It persuasively builds the case for the ability of stories to offer hope and solace; to help us become ourselves, over and over, even in extremis. * Spectator *Written by an entertaining storyteller and offers a rare insight into a situation that few people will have to face, but that it does us good to contemplate. * Mail on Sunday *While this book deals with distress, physical pain and uncertainty, its wry humour and lightness of touch make it anything but a misery memoir… Superb. * Times Literary Supplement *Douglas-Fairhurst has written a memoir that is not miserable. It’s funny and raw… Magical: pages speed by, fuelled by the author’s formidable intellect. * Financial Times, Book of the Week *

Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was born into a Jewish family in Prague. In 1906 he received a doctorate in jurisprudence, and for many years he worked a tedious job as a civil service lawyer investigating claims at the State Worker’s Accident Insurance Institute. He never married, and published only a few slim volumes of stories during his lifetime. Meditation, a collection of sketches, appeared in 1912; The Stoker- A Fragment in 1913; Metamorphosis in 1915; The Judgement in 1916; In the Penal Colony in 1919; and A Country Doctor in 1920. The great novels were not published until after his death from tuberculosis- America, The Trial and The Castle.