Often revealingly autobiographical, Du Bois explores topics as diverse as the death of his infant son and the politics of Booker T. Washington. In every essay, he shows the consequences of both a political color line and an internal one, as he grapples with the contradictions of being black and being American.--Publisher's description.

A man awakens to find himself transformed into a giant vermin; a performer starves himself to death as a circus attraction; a fiendish engine of capital punishment engraves the letter of the law into the body of the condemned. Such are the nightmare scenarios that emerge in the short stories of Franz Kafka, one of the twentieth century's most formative, mystifying literary figures. Though immediate in their impact, Kafka's stories invite endless angles...

The anti-hero, Aeneas Manston, as physically alluring as he is evil, fascinates the innocent Cytherea, though she is in love with another man. When he cannot seduce her, Manston resorts to deception and blackmail, and ever more desperate measures to achieve his ends.