A book of poetry, after motifs by Franz Kafka as recounted by the author. About the Book In the summer of 2016 I received a scholarship by the Franz-Edelmaier-Residenz fur Literatur und Menschenrechte in Merano, a health resort in northern Italy. My intention was to complete a recent translation. Although I knew that Franz Kafka had been living in Merano for some months during the spring of 1920, I had not been aware that we could have been actual neighbors - since my apartment was only a few minutes away from the wonderful old villa where Kafka had tried in vain to cure himself of tuberculosis. After a while I forgot about my translation and started to work on Kafka’s parables, recounting them, as I thought then, for children and, as I think now, for all readers who might prefer to get in touch with his work in a rather playful way. As a matter of fact, in contrast to the idea of Kafka as a nearly inaccessible author, with this book I want to point out the universalism of his work and his thinking, with all of its deep and dark humanity. Like every great artist, Kafka does not speak exclusively to a cultural elite, but, on the contrary, to each reader at his or her own level of life-experience. There is never the one-and-only interpretation, but always a fascinating multitude of numerous approaches to the vividness heard in more than one truth. Unfortunately, I can not ask Kafka for permission to play with his parables, but I like to think that he - secure in the integrity of his messages - would have said, of course, try…