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Alderman and Smith contribute to Abacus' collection of Kafkaesque short stories
Abacus has seized a collection of Kafkaesque short stories to commemorate the centenary of Franz Kafka’s death in 2024.
The publisher holds world rights to A Cage Went in Search of a Bird, a book of 10 brand new stories inspired by Kafka’s work, written by a list of major literary bestsellers and prize winners. These include Ali Smith, Joshua Cohen, Elif Batuman, Naomi Alderman, Tommy Orange, Helen Oyeyemi, Keith Ridgway, Yiyun Li, Leone Ross and Charlie Kaufman. The stories will be introduced by prize-winning critic Becca Rothfeld.
“What happens when one of the most idiosyncratic and visionary imaginations of the 20th century meets some of the greatest literary minds writing in English today?” the publisher teased. “From a future society who ask their AI servants to construct a giant tower to reach God; to a flat hunt that descends into a comically absurd bureaucratic nightmare; to a population experiencing a wave of unbearable, contagious panic attacks, these 10 specially commissioned stories are by turns mind-bending, funny, unsettling and haunting.”
Publishing director Anna Kelly said: “These 10 stories are vastly and excitingly different to each other and yet share certain themes that make the collection a powerful, timely and thought-provoking reading experience. I can’t wait to share this one-of-a-kind literary celebration with booksellers and readers next year.”
A Cage Went in Search of a Bird will publish on 30th May 2024 in hardback, e-book and audio, ahead of the centenary on 3rd June 2024. Kelly acquired rights for the stories by Smith, Li, Oyeyemi and Batuman from the Wylie Agency; for Orange’s story from Abner Stein on behalf of Aragi Inc; for stories by Alderman and Ross from David Higham Associates; for Cohen’s story from Abner Stein on behalf of McCormick Literary; for Ridgway’s story from Rogers, Coleridge and White; and for Kaufman’s story direct with the author.
Publication is in partnership with the Oxford Kafka Research Centre’s programme of events for the centenary, which also includes a major Kafka exhibition at the Weston Library in Oxford, a new dance adaptation of Kafka’s A Hunger Artist by award-winning choreographer Arthur Pita, and two new radio dramas of The Trial and Amerika for BBC Radio 4 by playwright Ed Harris.
