Franz Kafka Biography and List of Works

Czech-born German-speaking writer who's posthumously published novels express the alienation of 20th century man. Kafka's disturbing vision of bureaucratic and totalitarian society with its psychological labyrinths have much in common with the works of George Orwell (Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1949; Animal Farm, 1955). Kafka's ill health is also an important biographical factor contributing to the fear of physical and mental collapse dramatized in his novels, diaries, and short stories, such as "Ein Hungerkünstler" (1924).

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect..."
(from The Metamorphosis, 1915)

Kafka was born in Prague, now in the Czech Republic but then part of Austria. His father was Hermann Kafka, an owner of a large dry goods establishment, and his mother Julie (Löwy) Kafka, belonged to one of the leading families in the German-speaking, German-cultured Jewish circles of Prague. Hermann Kafka was a domestic tyrant, who directed his sarcasm against his son. Franz had three sisters, all of whom perished in Nazi camps. He grew up in an atmosphere of familial alienation and marginalization that he experienced as a member of Prague's Jewish minority. He was educated at the German National and Civic Elementary School and the German National Humanistic Gymnasium. In 1901 he entered Ferdinand-Karls University, where he studied law and received a doctorate in 1906.

During these years Kafka became a member of a circle of intellectuals, which included Franz Werfel, Oskar Baum and Max Brod, whom Kafka met in 1902. About 1904 Kafka began writing, making reports on industrial accidents and health hazard in the office by day and writing stories by night.

Until his retirement Kafka worked in the insurance trade (1907-23), first in an administrative position in a Prague branch of an Italian insurance company, and then at the Workmen's Accident Insurance Institute of Prague. His work was highly valued at the company and during World War I his supervisors arranged for his draft deferment.

During his life Kafka had many girlfriends, many affairs, and a number of broken engagements. In 1912 he met Felice Bauer, a twenty-four-year-old businesswoman from Berlin. Their relationship lasted for five years. Kafka's first creative period started with such short stories as "Das Urteil" (The Judgment) and "Die Vervandlung" (The Metamorphosis), in which Gregor Samsa wakes to find that he has turned overnight into a giant insect in his room. He remains there trapped by his petite bourgeois family. His father throws an apple core at Gregor, it rots and Gregor dies.

World War I stopped Kafka's productivity as a novelist and short story writer, but he continued to write letters and diaries. In 1914 he began his second novel, DER PROZESS (The Trial) and wrote the short story "In der Strafkolonie," which was one of the few works published in Kafka's lifetime. The Trial depicted the hopeless attempts of Josef K. to survive nightmarish events that start at his breakfast table. "Someone must have been spreading lies about Josef K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one morning." Josef K. encounters the effects of law but no identifiable lawgiver, a theme Kafka further developed in the unfinished novel DAS SCHLOSS (1926, The Castle). Josef K.'s fruitless attempts at understanding the legal process in which he stands trapped, is similar to the situation of K., the protagonist in The Castle.

In August 1917 Kafka discovered that he had contracted tuberculosis. He spent ten months with his sister Ottla in the Bohemian village of Zuerau. In 1919 he was hospitalised because of influenza. Kafka spent increasing periods of time on leave in various rural sanatoriums. He fell in love with Milena Jesenská, a twenty-four-years-old writer, who had translated some of his stories in Czech.

After their relationship ended, Kafka wrote his last novel, The Castle, where K. arrives at a village, claiming to be a land surveyor. "The Castle hill was hidden, veiled in mist and darkness, nor was there even a glimmer of light to how that the castle was there." K tries to obtain recognition of his status as the officially appointed land surveyor to the Castle, a mysterious domain that rules over the village. K wants to meet Klamm, the castle superior, as eagerly as Vladimir and Estragon wait for Godot in Beckett's famous play. His assistants, Arthur and Jeremiah, are not helping. K makes love to the barmaid Frieda, a former mistress of Klamm. Frieda leaves K. when she discovers that he is merely using her.

"Aber auch Ihnen dürfte doch schon die Lückenlosigkeit der amtlichen Organisation aufgefallen sein. Aus dieser Lückenlosigkeit aber ergibt sich, dass jeder, der irgendein Anliegen hat oder aus sonstigen Gründen über etwas verhört werden muss, sofort, ohne Zögern, meistens sogar noch ehe er selbst die Sache zurechtgelegt hat, ja, noch ehe er selbstr von ihr weiss, schon die Vorladung erhält."
(from Das Schloss)

Kafka retired in 1922 on a pension and in 1923 met Dora Diamant, a twenty-year old woman from an Orthodox Jewish family. They moved to Berlin. Kafka's health was rapidly deteriorating and in 1924 they moved to the Kierling Sanatorium outside Vienna, where Kafka died on June 3, 1924. His unfinished novel, DER VERSCHOLLENE (retitled Amerika), was published in 1927.

As a Jew Kafka was isolated from the German community in Prague, but his friend and biographer Max Brod (1884-1968) did his best to promote Kafka's career as a writer. However, Kafka published only few stories. Some of Kafka's best short stories date from the last two and a half years of his life: in "Hungerkünstler", in which the hero has chosen his unusual profession because he cannot adapt to the world and is left to die unwatched, "Der Bau", and "Josephine, die Sängerin", in which the central character is a mouse, who sings - in fact, she is only squeaking.

Kafka's requested before his death, that all his manuscripts should be destroyed. Fortunately for literature, this was ignored by Max Brod, who published the unfinished novels The Trial, The Castle, and America, all classics of modern fiction.

For further reading: Franz Kafka and Prague by P. Eisner (1959); Franz Kafka: A Biography by M. Brod (1960) Die Kafka-Literatur by Harry Järv (1961); The Process of Kafka's Trial by A. Jaffe (1967); Franz Kafka: A Critical Study of His Writings by W. Emrich (1968); Conversations with Kafka by A. Janouch (1971); On Kafka's Castle: A Study by R. Shepard (1973); Kafka's Other Trial by E. Canetti (1974); Kafka by Erich Heller (1974); Kafka: A Biography by R. Hayman (1982); F. Kafka and Prague by J. Grusa (1983); The Nightmare of Reason by Ernst Pawel (1984); Kafka: Judausm, Politics, and Literature by R. Robertson (1985); F. Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature by G. Deleuze and F. Guattari (1986); Critical Essays on Franz Kafka, ed. by R. Gross (1990); Kafka by Pietro Citati (1990); Franz Kafka: A Study of the Short Fiction by A. Thiher (1990); Kafka and Dostoevsky by W.J. Dodd (1992); Franz Kafka, the Jewish Patient by Sander Gilman (1995) - See also: Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde - Trivia: G. Janouch's Conversation with Kafka (1971) is a hoax; Kafka suffered insomnia like many authors, among them Charles Dickens. - Kafkaesque - a term used often by critics to describe a narrative mode combining a realistic style with the distortions and absurdities of nightmare scenarios.

BETRACHTUNG, (1913)