Franz Kafka 1883-1924

1. Franz Kafka1883-1924 “Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it.”

2. Short Biography • Born in Prague, now in the Czech Republic but then part of Austria. • Father was Hermann Kafka, an owner of a large dry goods establishment; 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 tyrant, who directed his anger against his son. • Also had three sisters, all of whom perished in Nazi camps. • Educated at the German National and Civic Elementary School and the German National Humanistic Gymnasium. In 1901 entered Ferdinand-Karls University, where he studied law and received a doctorate in 1906. • About 1904 began writing, making reports on industrial accidents and health hazard in the office by day, and writing stories by night. • Had many girlfriends, many affairs, and a number of broken engagements. • In 1912 met Felice Bauer, a twenty-four-year-old businesswoman from Berlin. Their relationship lasted for five years.

3. Biography (cont.) • In August 1917 contracted tuberculosis and spent ten months with his sister Ottla in the Bohemian village of Zuerau. • In 1919 he was hospitalized 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-year-old writer, who had translated some of his stories into Czech. After they separated she worked as a journalist and became a Resistance hero. Jesenská died in a German concentration camp in 1944. • Kafka retired in 1922 on a pension. Next year he met on the Baltic Dora Diamant, a twenty-year old woman from an Orthodox Jewish family. Dora survived Nazi Germany, Stalin's Russia, and World War II. She died in London in 1952. • His health rapidly deteriorated. In 1924 Kafka moved with Dora to the Kierling Sanatorium outside Vienna. • Died of tuberculosis on June 3, 1924.

4. Themes • Alienation • Anxiety • Loneliness • Family relationships, esp. father/son relationship • Isolation • Society’s treatment of those who are different

5. Major Works Short Stories • Description of a Struggle • Wedding Preparations in the Country • The Judgment • The Metamorphosis • In the Penal Colony • The Village Schoolmaster • Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor • A Country Doctor • The Hunter Gracchus • The Great Wall of China • A Report to an Academy • The Refusal • A Hunger Artist • Investigations of a Dog • A Little Woman • The Burrow • Josephine the Singer, or The Mouse Folk Novels • The Trial • The Castle • America

6. Awards & Achievements No Awards. Most of Kafka’s work was published posthumously. His unique body of writing continues to challenge critics, and attempts to classify his work are generally inadequate.