Kafka's ‘Metamorphosis’ Inspires a Google Doodle

In recognition of author Franz Kafka’s birthday, today’s Google doodle is inspired by the author’s classic short story “Metamporphis.”

Published in 1915 the story centers around Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman who becomes transformed into a monstrous, yet indistinguishable vermin (perhaps a beetle or a cockroach). It is never explained in the story why Samsa transforms, nor did Kafka ever give an explanation.

This nightmarish image of the human-insect lodged in our imaginations is now a Google doodle marking the 130th anniversary of Kafka's birth on July 3 1883 - but so far, in a machination worthy of the master himself, in almost all of the world except for the US and UK, the UK Guardian reports.