Bug’s life / Train in vain
Michael Kupperman on Kafka; racing to catch the train with Zito Madu
![Title card: CLASSIC BOOKS EXPLAINED: Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" [image of a roach].](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/a3/11a34ed2-0d03-4467-9051-6142cc358694/content/images/size/w960/2026/04/top-Kafka01-1.png)
Today: Satirical/surrealist comic artist Michael Kupperman; and Zito Madu, journalist and author of The Minotaur at Calle Lanza.
Issue No. 555
Classic Books Explained: “The Metamorphosis”
Michael Kupperman
Running Late
Zito Madu
Classic Books Explained: “The Metamorphosis”
by Michael Kupperman
![CLASSIC BOOKS EXPLAINED - [KAFKA WORRIEDLY WRITING WITH A LARGE NO. 2 PENCIL AS A FANGED GREEN-SKINNED PERSON WEARING A BOWTIE PRESSES FACE UP TO WINDOW AND PEERS IN] Franz Kafka'sThe Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka was a timid clerk in Eastern Europe who was always being bullied and spied on. In response he wrote this book, about a man named Gregor Samsa who wakes up one morning transformed into an insect. His family rejects him and throws apples at him, because that's what Europeans do with anything they don't understand. [ROACH WITH APPLES BEING THROWN AT IT]](https://storage.ghost.io/c/11/a3/11a34ed2-0d03-4467-9051-6142cc358694/content/images/2026/04/Kafka01.jpg)
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