The Cockroach is a satirical novella by the author Ian McEwan, published in 2019 by Jonathan Cape, inspired by Kafka's The Metamorphosis and loosely based on the ramifications of Brexit.

[4] Fintan O'Toole in The Guardian praises the novella "It is written to comfort and entertain those who already believe that the Brexit project is deranged.

He cannot hope to laugh the terrible reality of Brexit out of existence, but McEwan’s comic parable at least provides some relief from a political farce that has long gone beyond a joke.

"[4] Erik Martiny also praises the novel in The London Magazine, "With politics the main focus of his attention, McEwan gives it all the pizzazz he possesses and with hilarious results.

"[5] Dwight Garner has the opposite view, writing in The New York Times: "The Cockroach is so toothless and wan that it may drive his readers away in long apocalyptic caravans.

The young McEwan, the author of blacker-than-black little novels, the man who acquired the nickname “Ian Macabre,” would rather have gnawed off his own fingers than written it.

At dark political and social moments, we need better, rougher magic than this...Once McEwan has established his premise, however, The Cockroach stalls.

It devolves into self-satisfied, fish-in-barrel commentary about topics like Twitter and the tabloid press...The idea of writing The Cockroach probably seemed, in the shower one morning, like a good one.

[6] Robert Shrimsley writing in Financial Times explains "By the end of this short, occasionally elegant and no doubt cathartic fictional essay, McEwan has inadvertently given readers a fresh insight into the arrogance and contempt that liberal society feels towards those who have dared to defy it by voting for Brexit.