In the Penal Colony

In the Penal Colony is a short story written by Franz Kafka and originally published in 1919.

The story is set in an unnamed penal colony, where an officer oversees a complex torture and execution device that inscribes the law the condemned man has violated into his skin, causing prolonged agony and death.

As the story progresses, the officer in charge of the execution provides more details about its origins and offers a justification for its use, even going so far as to pressure a visiting explorer to endorse the practice.

The conflict between the officer’s devotion to the old system and the explorer’s refusal to endorse it exposes the colony’s arbitrary law, secrecy, and dehumanizing use of power.

This edition of In the Penal Colony uses Ian Johnston’s English translation.

“It’s a peculiar apparatus,” said the Officer to the Traveler, gazing with a certain admiration at the device, with which he was, of course, thoroughly familiar.”