Ein Hungerkünstler
1922
He was once the most famous man in the world. They came by the thousands to watch him starve. So opens Kafka's devastating parable about an artist who makes of his body a monument to negation. The hunger artist can go forty days without food, and he does so not from necessity but from calling, fasting is his art, his only art, and he performs it with the seriousness of a priest at the altar. Audiences initially worship his discipline, building stadiums to witness his voluntary deprivation. Yet as the years pass, fashion shifts, the hunger artist becomes a curiosity, then an embarrassment, finally a relic tucked away in a circus's forgotten corner. When he finally dies, his cage holds not another faster but a panther, its vitality a bitter punchline to a life of negation. This is Kafka at his most crystalline: a story about what it means to create in a world that has stopped caring, about the terrible purity of devotion that refuses to compromise, and about how we honor our deepest callings only to discover the world has moved on. It will break your heart and haunt your ambition.
Editions
X-Ray
“This perversion of the truth, familiar to the artist though it was, always unnerved him afresh and proved too much for him. What was a consequence of the premature ending of his fast was here presented as the cause of it! To fight against this lack of understanding, against a whole world of nonunderstanding, was impossible.””
— Franz Kafka
“Because,” said the hunger artist, lifting his head a little and, with his lips pursed as if for a kiss, speaking right into the supervisor’s ear so that he wouldn’t miss anything, “because I couldn’t find a food which I enjoyed. If had found that, believe me, I would not have made a spectacle of myself and would have eaten to my heart’s content, like you and everyone else.” Those were his last words, but in his failing eyes there was the firm, if no longer proud, conviction that he was continuing to fast.””
— Franz Kafka
“And when once in a while some leisurely passer-by stopped, made merry over the old figure on the board, and spoke of swindling, that was in its own way the stupidest lie ever invented by indifference and inborn malice, since it was not the hunger artist who was cheating, he was working honestly, but the world was cheating him of his reward.””
— Franz Kafka
“Não temos juventude, ficamos logo adultos, e continuamos então adultos por um tempo demasiadamente longo, vêm daí um certo cansaço e uma certa desesperança que atravessa com um vinco largo a essência no conjunto tão tenaz e cheia de esperança do nosso povo””
— Franz Kafka
“I needed to fast because I couldn't find any food to which I liked.””
— Franz Kafka
“Try explaining the art of hungering to someone! If a person doesn't feel it, then you can't make him understand. The lovely posters became dirty and illegible; they were torn down, no one thought of replacing them. Initially, each completed hunger-day had been carefully marked on the small notice board; but then the figure had long since remained the same, for after the first few weeks the staff had grown tired of even this minor task. And so the hunger artist kept on hungering, as he had once dreamed of doing; but no one counted the days, no one, not even the hunger artist himself, knew how long he had been hungering, and his heart grew heavy.””
— Franz Kafka
“همس فنان الجوع من داخل قفصه، وقال: "اعذروني جميعًا" الوحيد من بينهم الذي فهم ما قاله كان المشرف الذي اقترب بأذنه من قضبان القفص الحديدي. قال المشرف "بالطبع!"، ثم خبط بإصبعه على جبينه كي ينبه العمال إلى حالة الفنان وما اصابه من جنون وخرف، وقال: "لقد سامحناك" قال فنان الجوع: "كل ما أردته هو أن يعجبكم إمتناعي عن الطعام"قال المشرف بدماثة: "لقد اعجبنا"قال فنان الجوع: "ولكن ما كان يجب أن تعجبوا به". قال المشرف: "لماذا لا نعجب به؟". قال فنان الجوع: "لأني مجبر على الجوع، ولا أستطيع غير ذلك" قال المشرف: "شيء غريب! لماذا لا يمكنك فعل شيء آخر؟" "لأني..."، قال فنان الجوع وهو يرفع رأسه الصغير قليلا، وكانت شفتاه مضمومتين وكأنه سيُقبل أحدهم، وتحدث إلى المشرف في أذنه مباشرة حتى لا تضيع منه الكلمات: "لأنني لم أعثر على الطعام الذي أشتهيه، لو أني كنت عثرت عليه، صدقني لما أحدثت ضجة، ولأكلت منه حتى أشبع مثلك ومثل الباقين." كانت هذه آخر كلماته، لكن نظراته الكسيرة كانت تنم عن قناعة ربما تخلو من الفخر، لكنها قناعة قوية بأنه سيواصل الجوع.””
— Franz Kafka
“because I couldn’t find the food I liked. If I had found it, believe me, I should have made no fuss and stuffed myself like you or anyone else.””
— Franz Kafka
“And when once in a while a person strolling past stood there making fun of the old number and talking of a swindle, that was in a sense the stupidest lie which indifference and innate maliciousness could invent, for the hunger artist was not being deceptive”
— Franz Kafka
