Home | Categories | Fiction | Fiction – Short Stories

In the Penal Colony

Franz Kafka

Format: Global Grey free PDF, epub, Kindle ebook
Pages (PDF): 28
Publication Date: 1919

Download Links (below donate buttons):

Last week, around 33,000 people downloaded books from my site - 10 people gave donations. These books can take me from 2 to 10 hours to create. I want to keep them free, but need some support to be able to do so. If you can, please make a small donation (the average is £2.50).

PayPal:

Stripe:

PDF ePub Kindle

Don't want to donate? You can also support the site by buying a collection, such as the Fiction (General) one, with 100 ebooks for only £7.00

Summary:

In the Penal Colony is a short story by Franz Kafka. The story is set in an unnamed penal colony. As in some of Kafka's other writings, the narrator in this story seems detached from, or perhaps numbed by, events that one would normally expect to be registered with horror. The book describes the last use of an elaborate torture and execution device that carves the sentence of the condemned prisoner on his skin before letting him die, all in the course of twelve hours. As the plot unfolds, the reader learns more and more about the machine, including its origin and original justification.