On the occasion of the publication by Schocken Books of a new translation based on the restored text of The Castle, PEN (a fellowship of writers dedicated to defending free expression and advancing the cause of literature) sponsored an evening of tribute, reflection, and re-examination of the work of Franz Kafka. The evening, directed by Tom Palumbo, took place on Thursday, took place on Thursday, March 26, 1998, 8:00 p.m. in The Town Hall, New York City. Jewish Heritage Online Magazine is proud to present the complete recording of this special event in RealAudio. You can download the free RealPlayer from Real Networks in order to hear the broadcast. In addition you can read the Introduction to the new edition of the Castle, and notes about the new translation. The RealAudio broadcast is divided into different sections. To hear the ones that interest you simply click on them in list below. Christopher Plummer's outstanding onstage performance "Nabokov on Kafka" and "Doctorow on Kafka" are not available in RealAudio. Introductory remarks Reading: "Before the Law," translated by Willa and Edwin Muir "I am a Memory Come Alive" A Series of Remarks on Kafka's Funniness Nabokov on Kafka (unavailable) Kafka and the Mystery of Meaning Pages for Kafka Doctorow on Kafka (unavailable) Reading: from Kafka's Diaries, 1910, translated by Joseph Kresh The Fifth Impossibility Reading from The Castle, translated by Mark Harman Closing remarks This event was made possible by the Schocken Foundation, Schocken Books Inc., a Random House company; The New York State Council on the Arts, a Public Agency; and the Austrian Cultural Institute. Supporting organizations: Austrian Cultural Institute Leo Baeck Institute Czech Center New York Participants: AHARON APPELFELD is an Israeli writer, twelve of whose novels have been translated from Hebrew, including Badenheim 1939, The Age of Wonders, Tzili, The Retreat, To the Land of the Cattails, Katerina, and Unto the Soul. Reflecting his experience as a survivor of the Holocaust, his novels have won him international acclaim. Recipient of the Commonwealth Award and of his country's three most prestigious literary prizes, he lives in Jerusalem and teaches literature at Ben Gurion University in the Negev. His most recent novel to be translated, The Iron Tracks, was published last month. PAUL AUSTER has received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Morton Dauwen Zabel Award and NEA Fellowships in poetry and prose. Among his works of fictions are The Invention of Solitude, The Music of Chance, Leviathan (winner of France's Prix Medici Etranger), Mr. Vertigo, and The New York Trilogy: City of Glass, Ghosts, The Locked Room. Auster wrote the screenplays for the films Smoke and Blue in the Face, and co-directed the latter. THULANI DAVIS has received numerous awards, including honors from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Manhattan Borough President's Office, and a Grammy, for album notes written for Aretha Franklin. Her novels include Nineteen Fifty-Nine and Maker of Saints, winner of an American Book Award; her poetry has been published in two volumes, Playing Changes and All the Renegade Ghosts. E.L. DOCTOROW's works include the novels, The Book of Daniel, Ragtime, Loon Lake, World's Fair, Billy Bathgate and The Waterworks: Lives of the Poets: Six Stories & a Novella; a volume of selected essays, Jack London, Hemingway, and the Constitution; and a ply, Drinks before Dinner, which has been produced by the New York Shakespeare Festival. Among his many honors are the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the Howells Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. MARK HARMAN holds a Ph.D. from Yale University and has taught German and Irish literature at Oberlin and Dartmouth. His essays and reviews have appeared in the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, among other publications. He is the translator of a new edition of Franz Kafka's The Castle and Soul of the Age: Selected Letters of Herman Hesse; and the editor and co-translator of Robert Walser Rediscovered: Stories, Fairy-Tale Plays, and Critical Responses. He currently teaches literature at the University of Pennsylvania. NORMAN MANEA is a Romanian writer living in New York. He is the author of October, Eight O'Clock, a collection of short stories; On Clowns; The Dictator and the Artist, a volume of essays; Compulsory Happiness, a book of novellas; and The Black Envelope, a novel. A recipient of Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundation awards, he is the Francis Flournoy Professor in European studies and Culture at Bard College. CYNTHIA OZICK is the author of numerous novels, short stories and essays, and a play. Among her books are The Cannibal Galaxy; The Shawl; Fame & Folly: Essays; Metaphor & Memory; Bloodshed & Three Novellas; Levitation; Five Fictions and most recently, The Puttermesser Papers. She has been recognized with the American Academy of Arts and Letters Mildred and Harold Strauss Livings Award, four O. Henry First Prizes, the Rea Award for the Short Story, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other awards. DAVID REMNICK, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is the author of Resurrection, Lenin's Tomb, and The Devil Problem and Other True Stories. A former Moscow correspondent for The Washington Post, he is the editor of The New Yorker. SUSAN SONTAG has written three novels, The Benefactor, Death Kit, and The Volcano Lover; a volume of short stories, I, etcetera; two plays, Alice in Bed and Lady from the Sea; and five books of essays. among them On Photography and Illness as a Metaphor. She has also written and directed four films and directed plays in the U.S., Italy, and in Bosnia. Her new novel, In America, will appear in early 1999. DAVID FOSTER WALLACE is the author of a Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, Infinite Jest, The Broom of the System, and Girl with Curious Hair. His short fiction and essays have appeared in Conjunctions, Esquire, Harper's, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Playboy, and other periodicals. Wallace has received the Whiting Award, the Lannan Award for Fiction, the Paris Review Award for humor, the QPB Joe Savago New Voices Award, and an O. Henry award. TOM PALUMBO most recently directed Jean with Tammy Grimes at the Schoolhouse Theatre in Croton, Shaw's Don Juan In Hell with Jill Clayburgh and Sam Waterston, and Oleanna by David Mamet. Other credits include Arthur Miller's Last Yankee and Joyce Carol Oates' Greensleeves with Mira Sorvino. Mr. Palumbo is a member of the Director's Guild of America and the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. He is a member of the Actors Studio and currently teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.