Noches blancas

Gregor Samsa wakes up turned into a giant insect and his family has to deal with it. Kafka's novella reads in an afternoon and stays with you for weeks.

Franz Kafka

Marlow's journey up the Congo River in search of the mysterious Kurtz. A short, dense novella about colonialism and the limits of civilization.

Joseph Conrad

A successful judge faces illness and discovers he has lived an empty life. Tolstoy's most concentrated novella, in under a hundred pages.

Leo Tolstoy