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Kafka, Franz (1883-1924)
Copyright: IMAGNO/Austrian Archives
Kafka was born into a Jewish merchant family in Prague on 3 July 1883. Kafka first studied German language and literature, but soon switched to law. In 1906 he graduates from the German University in Prague and becomes a clerk for an accident insurance office where he works until his retirement. He started writing during his university years but destroyed all literary works.
Kafka led a fairly active social life and made acquaintance with many prominent literary and intellectual figures of his era, such as the writers Franz Werfel and Max Brod, who would become his supporter and most intimate friend. In 1911, Kafka spent the first of his many therapeutic stays at sanatoriums for ill health.
None of Kafka's novels was published during his lifetime, and it was only with reluctance that he made available a fraction of his shorter fiction including “Meditation” (1913), “The Judgment” (1913), “The Metamorphosis” (1915) and “The Penal Colony” (1919). In 1915 he receives the Fontane Prize for the publication of “The Metamorphosis”.
Never famous in his own lifetime, Kafka turned out to be the writer who defined the twentieth century. Growing up in the shadow of his dominant and authoritarian father, the feeling of impotence was a syndrome that became an all-encompassing theme in Kafka’s fiction.
Kafka’s relationships with women are problematical. To Felice Bauer he was engaged (and disengaged) twice over the next five years, the following year he had a brief relationship with Grete Bloch, and later he met Dora Diamant and actually moved to Berlin with her.
In 1922 Kafka had to leave his job at the insurance office as his tuberculosis grew worse. Kafka died on 3 June 1924.
Despite Kafka's instructions that all his unprinted manuscripts should be destroyed after his death, his friend Max Brod ignored the request and published them thus leading Kafka to world fame. The best known of the posthumous works are three fragmentary novels “The Trial” (1925), “The Castle” (1926) and “America” (1927).
Kafka led a fairly active social life and made acquaintance with many prominent literary and intellectual figures of his era, such as the writers Franz Werfel and Max Brod, who would become his supporter and most intimate friend. In 1911, Kafka spent the first of his many therapeutic stays at sanatoriums for ill health.
None of Kafka's novels was published during his lifetime, and it was only with reluctance that he made available a fraction of his shorter fiction including “Meditation” (1913), “The Judgment” (1913), “The Metamorphosis” (1915) and “The Penal Colony” (1919). In 1915 he receives the Fontane Prize for the publication of “The Metamorphosis”.
Never famous in his own lifetime, Kafka turned out to be the writer who defined the twentieth century. Growing up in the shadow of his dominant and authoritarian father, the feeling of impotence was a syndrome that became an all-encompassing theme in Kafka’s fiction.
Kafka’s relationships with women are problematical. To Felice Bauer he was engaged (and disengaged) twice over the next five years, the following year he had a brief relationship with Grete Bloch, and later he met Dora Diamant and actually moved to Berlin with her.
In 1922 Kafka had to leave his job at the insurance office as his tuberculosis grew worse. Kafka died on 3 June 1924.
Despite Kafka's instructions that all his unprinted manuscripts should be destroyed after his death, his friend Max Brod ignored the request and published them thus leading Kafka to world fame. The best known of the posthumous works are three fragmentary novels “The Trial” (1925), “The Castle” (1926) and “America” (1927).
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