'Dear God!' said the guard. 'Why can't you just co-operate in a situation like yours? You seem to be annoying us needlessly, we who of all your fellow men are most likely to have your interests at heart just now!' Josef K., a senior official in a large bank, is arrested although what he has done is not made clear. His life is thrown into turmoil as he becomes enmeshed in a struggle to prove his innocence. But he is battling against baffling rules administered by a remote and uncaring bureaucracy. And he doesn't help his case by talking when he should be listening. Darkly humorous, The Trial is an unsettling and thought-provoking work which can be interpreted in many different ways. This is a new translation of a singular and compelling novel, one of the great enigmatic works of modern literature.