Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature (Theory and History of Literature)

In this classic of critical thought, Deleuze and Guattari challenge conventional interpretations of Kafka’s work. Instead of exploring preexisting categories or literary genres, they propose a concept of “minor literature”—the use of a major language that subverts it from within. Writing as a Jew in Prague, they contend, Kafka made German “take flight on a line of escape” and joyfully became a stranger within it. His work therefore serves as a model for understanding all critical language that must operate within the confines of the dominant language and culture.