During the autumn of 1912, in Prague, between November 17 and December 7, Franz Kafka (1883-1924) wrote The Metamorphosis, the subterranean and literal adventures of Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman who waking up one morning « From a dream full of nightmares he found himself in his bed turned into a huge bug ». The hope of recovering the lost condition, the attempts to adapt to the new state, family and social behaviors, the oppression of the scene and the fading of time are the ingredients with which the author elaborates the plot of contemporary man, a being condemned to silence , to loneliness and insignificance. Kafka's other writings develop rigorous parallel variations, crush inexorable nightmares, assign enigmatic obsessions to disoriented and defeated characters, but perhaps The Metamorphosis is the narrative that best expresses "Kafkaesque primordial man." Hence, it deserves the unanimous qualification of perfect work and masterpiece, a decidedly superior text in the panorama of world literature of the 20th century.