The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
No one has better described the human condition with tragic-comic weight.
Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz
Mystery and poetry of pure musical prose.
Steps by Jerzy Kosinski
Disturbing and profound meditation on sex, suffering, and the problem of being a person.
Hourglass by Danilo Kis
The trauma of of psychic wounds being passed over generations.
99 Stories of God by Joy Williams
The perfect form for her subject…the closest prose came to poetry.
Sean Singer is the author of Discography (Yale University Press) and Honey & Smoke (Eyewear publishing).