Kafka’s Curse: A Novel

“Dangor writes lyrical…beautiful prose. Kafka’s Curse is….full of cries that go on ringing in the head.” — The New York Times Book Review

From the award-winning South African poet Achmat Dangor, an extraordinary American debut and an imaginative reinterpretation of an old Arabic fairy tale unfolds in five magical narratives set in post-apartheid South Africa.

Kafka’s Curse is the story of Oscar Kahn (born Omar Khan), a “colored” Muslim architect passing as a Jewish man, married to a white woman, who eventually experiences a mysterious physical transformation, the likes of which no one can explain. As his brother Malik, a politician firmly rooted in Islam, tries to come to terms with his brother’s betrayal, he abandons both his principles and his family when he falls in love with Amina, Omar’s beautiful psychotherapist. With the hauntingly lyrical  and rich allegory of Kafka’s Curse , Achmat Dangor commands a position at the forefront of contemporary literature.