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As part of ongoing efforts to promote Philippine and foreign literary works to Bikolanos, Franz Kafka’s celebrated 1915 novella The Metamorphosis, or Die Verwandlung in the original German, has now been translated into the Bikol language, and published as An Pagkagimata ni Gregor Samsa (The Awakening of Gregor Samsa).
Regarded as one of the most influential literary works of the 20th century, The Metamorphosis is about a traveling salesman who wakes up and finds himself inexplicably transformed into a monstrous bug, and his efforts to cope with his new condition.
Palanca award-winning writer Kristian Sendon Cordon, who translated The Metamorphosis, said the “translation of Kafka in the Bikol language (is) living proof that literature remains to be the best bridge between cultures.“
“Indeed, the story of Gregor Samsa has allowed our local languages to metamorphose into a language that can awaken us from our darkest nights, our deepest slumber,“ he added.
While widely available in English in the Philippines, The Metamorphosis was translated into Filipino only last year, courtesy of the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino.
The Bikol-language version of the novella is expected to open new opportunities for the language to continue to relate with the world of literature. Cordero, who is committed to bring more foreign writers to Bikol, follows in the footsteps of his Bikolnon predecessors, such as Francisco Gainza, Sali Imperial Sr., Wilmer Tria, and Frank Penones Jr., who have impressively navigated the treacherous seas of translation.
Born into a middle-class German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, Kafka is the author of dozens of short stories and a few unfinished novels, which were mostly published after his death at the age of 40. All of his works have become part of the world’s literary heritage.
Kafka is one of the most prominent writers of the so-called German literature of Prague—those who have been born there, but lived elsewhere, like as poet Rainer Maria Rilke; those who settled there for a long time and made Prague, with its mysteries and Gothic charm, a subject of their writings, such as Gustav Meyrink in his novel The Golem, and “avid reporter“ Egon Erwin Kisch.
“Though Kafka wrote all his famous works in German, he spoke and wrote in Czech and lived virtually all his life in Prague. He was—and still is—an integral part of Czech cultural and literary life,“ said Czech Ambassador to the Philippines Jaroslav Olša Jr. at the recent book launch of An Pagkagimata ni Gregor Samsa at the Ateneo de Naga University in Naga City, Camarines Sur province.
To help people learn more about Kafka’s life and understand his work, as well as about Prague, an exhibition, titled “Franz Kafka and Prague” was opened by Olša and Fr. Primitivo Viray Jr., president of the Ateneo de Naga, at the school’s Fr. James O’Brien, SJ Library.