One of his stories discusses the mythic belief in the Chinese empire in small towns, "The Great Wall of China," while another concerns a man who dies in the Black Forest but is left on Earth by the pilot of his death ship, "The Hunter Gracchus."  
Edmund White's The Beautiful Room is Empty takes its name from a letter this man wrote to Milena Jesenska.  One of his stories discusses the mythic belief in the Chinese empire in small towns, "The Great Wall of China," while another concerns a man who dies in the Black Forest but is left on Earth by the pilot of his death ship, "The Hunter Gracchus."  More famous are a story where an ape finds a "way out" onto the variety stage and one where an unnamed officer shows an explorer a Harrow that cuts the name of a criminal's crime into his skin, and then must lie in it himself.  FTP, name this author of "Report to an Academy" and "In the Penal Colony," as well as The Trial.
Edmund White's The Beautiful Room is Empty takes its name from a letter this man wrote to Milena Jesenska.  
Franz {Kafka }(3) [DL]