Franz Kafka wrote "In the Penal Colony" in 1914. In 1916, he gave a public reading of the story at the Galerie Goltz in Munich, Germany, during which one audience member reportedly fainted. Kafka revised the story in 1918. It was first published in book form in October 1919. The first English translation of "In the Penal Colony" was published in the March/April 1941 edition of the American magazine Partisan Review.