A grand story about searching, finding, and losing oneself, about genius and madness, friendship and love. In "Kafka with Wings," Austrian contemporary author Daniela Emminger linguistically captures an entire country along with its inhabitants, peculiarities, and natural forces: Kyrgyzstan. When Samat suddenly disappears without a trace one day and sets out to explore his Kyrgyz roots, his childhood friend Sybille is left lost in Austria. A quarter-century later, she stumbles upon the letters he has written since then and decides to follow her former soulmate. A wild chase through Kyrgyz history, the culture clash of the present, Samat's letter fragments, and Sybille's thoughts and soul landscape begins. And then there is the secret butterfly experiment "psukh," which addresses the Kafkaesque process of transformation.