First published in 1925, ‘The Trial’ is a novel about an extraordinary vision of one man put on trial by an anonymous authority on an unspecified charge, written by Franz Kafka, a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature.

One of Franz Kafka’s best-known works, it has been variously analyzed as an examination of political power, a satirical portrayal of bureaucracy, and a cynical religious parable. Left unfinished at the time of Kafka's 1924 death, it is nevertheless a sharp report of the apparently unfathomable nature of reality and captivating exploration of the universal issues of justice, power, freedom, and isolation.