A David Foster Wallace essay on this author’s “Funniness” (15[1])examines a very short story by this author in which a mouse laments how “the whole world is growing smaller every day,” only to be eaten by a cat. The narrator explains how people confuse present emperors with dead ones in a story by this author that justifies (-5[1])the piecemeal construction method for building the Great Wall of China. The narrator of a story by this author recalls struggling to learn to (*) drink alcohol during a talk on his past life as an ape. A panther replaces a performer who admits on his deathbed that he could never find food that he liked in a story by this writer whose title references the concept of the “starving artist.” For 10 points, name this Czech (10[1])author who imagined Gregor’s transformation into a giant bug in The Metamorphosis. ■END■