Haunts of Living Death: Kafka, Chirico, and Others

László F. Földényi, a cultural theorist and art historian considered one of Hungary's most respected intellectuals, is meeting Turkish readers for the first time through VakıfBank Kültür Yayınları.

In this book, Földényi traces the Western dream of the "ideal city" on a journey spanning from Renaissance paintings to the city plans of Nazi Germany, from Giorgio de Chirico's surrealist paintings to Franz Kafka's bureaucratic spaces. The author examines how the dream of an all-seeing, organizing, and managing eye in the face of nature's chaos was repeatedly constructed with modernity, the mindset behind it, and the close relationship between utopia and death.

Spaces of Living Death: Kafka, Chirico, and Others, which brings together urban planning, painting, and literature, is an intertextual and theoretical critique...