The Castle is an unfinished novel by Franz Kafka, first published in 1926. The author set out to work on this book in 1922. The main character's name is hidden under the initial K. In the story, he arrives to the Village governed by the Castle, where K. must work as a land surveyor. But it turns out that K. does not have permission to stay in the Castle, so he tries to obtain one during the entire novel.