A masterpiece of surreal fantasy, The Golem follows the protagonist, Athanasius Pernath, as he is flung from the present into the past, navigating a series of nightmare situations where the characters he encounters seem disconnected from one another. Underlying the surface panic is a decades-old tragedy, followed by a present-day one. Gustav Meyrink and Franz Kafka were contemporaries in the same city, both possessing a distinct gift for fantasy; Meyrink’s work is characterized by a bizarre surrealism.