Kafka en Argentina

This article deals with the initial critical reception of the work of Franz Kafka in Argentina by focusing on articles and reviews published in Sur and on essays by Jorge Luis Borges and Ezequiel Martinez Estrada that appeared in other publications. By looking at a significant emergence of animal imaginaries and a search for a new mode of appropriation of the fable and the bestiary traditions, the analysis traces the literary effects that such readings had on Argentine short-story writing in the 1950s. The texts analyzed in this article belong to Bestiario by Julio Cortázr, Mundo animal by Antonio Di Benedetto, and La furia and Las invitadas by Silvina Ocampo.