ABSTRACT
This chapter speaks about two parts, the first, on Franz Kafka and his story "A hunger artist", the second, on Borges and his fiction "The library of Babel". It offers biographical sketch of the author, which serves as a context for a close reading of his story. The penultimate story that Kafka wrote was "A hunger artist". This was written in spring of 1922 while Kafka was himself starving to death: his tuberculosis had spread to his throat, rendering him barely able to swallow. The hunger artist's descent into the imploding psychic space of omnipotence is mirrored by the declining popularity of fasting performances in Europe. The narrator and the hunger artist are closely tied, perhaps two aspects of a single person. The hunger artist is completely immersed in world of the abject: nothing holds significance. To become human while remaining sane is to be alive to the distinctively human pain that is born of the "gift" of consciousness.
