Invitation to a Beheading

Vladimir Nabokov · 1899–1977 · Russia / USA

Originally Priglashenie na kazn (Russian)

Why it matters

Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death for the crime of being opaque to everyone around him, awaiting execution in a prison as absurd as his sentence. Nabokov's most overtly Kafkaesque novel, written in Russian before he had ever read Kafka, or so he always insisted.

At a glance

Deliberately artificial, dreamlike logic dissolves setting and character into pure allegory.