"A Hunger Artist" (German: "Ein Hungerkünstler") is a short story by Franz Kafka first published in Die neue Rundschau in 1922.

The story was also included in the collection A Hunger Artist (Ein Hungerkünstler), the last book Kafka prepared for publication, which was printed by Verlag Die Schmiede shortly after his death.

The protagonist, a hunger artist who experiences the decline in appreciation of his craft, is typically Kafkaesque: an individual marginalized and victimized by society at large.

"A Hunger Artist" explores themes such as death, art, isolation, asceticism, spiritual poverty, futility, personal failure and the corruption of human relationships.

The narrator looks back several decades from "today" to a time when the public marveled at the professional hunger artist and then depicts the waning interest in such displays.

He would sit in a cage empty of anything except for a clock and some straw, always attended by rotating teams of watchers selected by the public (usually three butchers) to ensure he was not secretly eating.

Although the site was readily accessible and crowds thronged past during intermissions in the circus show, few paid any attention to the hunger artist, partly because any spectators who stopped to look at him would create an obstruction in the flow of people on their way to see the animals.

The hunger artist initially looked forward to the intermissions, but over time he came to dread them because they only meant there would be noise and disruption and a reminder that his days in the sun were gone.

He felt oppressed by the sights, sounds, and smells of the animals, but he didn't dare complain for fear of drawing attention to the fact that he was more of an annoyance than an attraction.

consider the story a sympathetic depiction of a misunderstood artist who seeks to rise above the merely animal parts of human nature (represented by the panther) and who is confronted with uncomprehending audiences.