The Strange Shadow of Kafka's Parables and Paradoxes

Recently, I read a dark and little collection of (very short) stories called I Don’t Care by the Hungarian author Ágota Kristóf. These stories—curated by the late Kristóf from across her career—were brief, dark, and surreal tales that fell somewhere between fables, parables, and absurdist jokes. It was right up my alley. Reading the collection got me thinking about how many books I love that fit this general description, and how those books seem to descend from the posthumous Kafka collection Parables and Paradoxes.