Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-language writer of novels and short stories, regarded by critics as one of the most influential authors of the 20th century. Most of his works, such as "Die Verwandlung" ("The Metamorphosis"), Der Prozess (The Trial), and Das Schloss (The Castle), are filled with the themes and archetypes of alienation, physical and psychological brutality, parent–child conflict, characters on a terrifying quest, labyrinths of bureaucracy, and mystical transformations.Kafka was born into a middle-class, German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In his lifetime, most of the population of Prague spoke Czech, and the division between Czech- and German-speaking people was a tangible reality, as both groups were strengthening their national identity. The Jewish community often found itself in between the two sentiments, naturally raising questions about a place to which one belongs. Kafka himself was fluent in both languages, considering German his mother tongue.Kafka trained as a lawyer and after completing his legal education, obtained employment with an insurance company. He began to write short stories in his spare time. For the rest of his life, he complained about the little time he had to devote to what he came to regard as his calling. He regretted having to devote so much attention to his Brotberuf ("day job", literally "bread job"). Kafka preferred to communicate by letter; he wrote hundreds of letters to family and close female friends, including his father, his fiancée Felice Bauer, and his youngest sister Ottla. He had a complicated and troubled relationship with his father that had a major effect on his writing. He also suffered conflict over being Jewish, feeling that it had little to do with him, although critics argue that it influenced his writing.Only a few of Kafka's works were published during his lifetime: the story collections Betrachtung (Contemplation) and Ein Landarzt (A Country Doctor), and individual stories (such as "Die Verwandlung") in literary magazines. He prepared the story collection Ein Hungerkünstler (A Hunger Artist) for print, but it was not published until after his death. Kafka's unfinished works, including his novels Der Prozess, Das Schloss and Amerika (also known as Der Verschollene, The Man Who Disappeared), were published posthumously, mostly by his friend Max Brod, who ignored Kafka's wish to have the manuscripts destroyed. Albert Camus, Gabriel García Márquez and Jean-Paul Sartre are among the writers influenced by Kafka's work; the term Kafkaesque has entered the English language to describe surreal situations like those in his writing.
Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary. [now in Czech Republic]
Height
5' 11¾" (1.82 m)
Profession
Writer
Education
Prague
Nationality
Czech
Parents
* Hermann Kafka, * Julie Kafka, Hermann Kafka, Julie Kafka
Siblings
Ottilie Kafka, Gabriele Kafka, Heinrich Kafka, Georg Kafka, Valli Kafka
Movies
The Trial, The Castle, Metamorphosis, Class Relations, A Country Doctor, The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsara, Artist Of Fasting, People In Places, Kafka's the burrow, The Penal Colony, Schakale Und Araber, Die Verwandlung, The Man Who Waited, The Chamberstork, K, Spell, Il processo, Isle of the Dead, M...
Star Sign
Cancer
#
Quote
1
What if I slept a little more and forgot about all this nonsense...
2
The Meaning of Life is that it stops.
3
All revolutions evaporate leaving only the slime of a new bureaucracy.
4
Evil is whatever distracts.
5
[Trial] Someone must have been telling stories about Joseph K, because one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.
6
A writer who does not write is a monster courting insanity.
7
[The Country Doctor] Poor young man, there is no helping you. I have found out your great wound. You are dying from this flower on your side. The family is happy; they see me doing something. The sister says that to the mother, the mother tells the father, the father tells a few guests who are coming in on tip toe through the moonlight of the open door, balancing themselves with outstretched arms. "Will you save me?" whispers the young man, sobbing, quite blinded by the life inside his wound. That's how people are in my region. Always demanding the impossible from the doctor. They have lost the old faith. The priest sits at home and tears his religious robes to pieces, one after the other. But the doctor is supposed to achieve everything with his delicate surgeon's hand. Well, it's what they like to think. I have not offered myself. If they use me for sacred purposes, I let that happen to me as well.
8
[The Country Doctor] "Do you know," I hear someone saying in my ear, "my confidence in you is very small. You were shaken out from somewhere. You don't come on your own feet. Instead of helping, you give me less room on my deathbed. The best thing would be if I scratch your eyes out." "Right," I say, "it's a disgrace. But now I'm a doctor. What am I supposed to do? Believe me, things are not easy for me either." "Should I be satisfied with this excuse? Alas, I'll probably have to be. I always have to make do. I came into the world with a beautiful wound; that was all I was furnished with." "Young friend," I say, "your mistake is that you have no perspective. I've already been in all the sick rooms, far and wide, and I tell you your wound is not so bad. Made in a tight corner with two blows from an axe. Many people offer their side and hardly hear the axe in the forest, to say nothing of the fact that it's coming closer to them." "Is that really so, or are you deceiving me in my fever?" "It is truly so. Take the word of honour of a medical doctor." He took my word and grew still. But now it was time to think about my escape.
9
[The Country Doctor] They had called me out for nothing. I'm used to it.
10
[Castle] Surveyor, in your thoughts you may be reproaching Sordini for not having been prompted by my claim to make inquiries about the matter in other departments. But that would have been wrong, and I want this man cleared of all blame in your thoughts. One of the operating principles of authorities is that the possibility of error is simply not taken into account. This principle is justified by the excellence of the entire organization and is also necessary if matters are to be discharged with the utmost rapidity. So Sordini couldn't inquire in other departments, besides those departments wouldn't have answered, since they would have noticed right away that he was investigating the possibility of an error.
11
[Trial] People under suspicion are better moving than at rest, since at rest they may be sitting in the balance without knowing it, being weighed together with their sins.
12
[Trial] How are we to avoid those in office becoming deeply corrupt when everything is devoid of meaning?
13
[Trial] K. didn't thumb through that book any more, but just threw open the next one at its title page, it was a novel with the title, "What Grete Suffered from her Husband, Hans". "So this is the sort of law book they study here," said K., "this is the sort of person sitting in judgment over me."
14
[Amerika] It's impossible to defend oneself in the absence of goodwill.
15
[Trial] It's characteristic of this judicial system that a man is condemned not only when he's innocent but also in ignorance.
16
[Castle] Only a total stranger could ask such a question. Are there control agencies? There are only control agencies! Of course they aren't meant to find errors, in the vulgar sense of that term, since no errors occur, and even if an error does occur, as in your case, who can finally say that it is an error?
17
A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.
18
Women are traps which lie in wait for men everywhere, in order to drag them down into the Finite.
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Fact
1
In Amerika Kafka describes the Statue of Liberty holding a sword when it is in fact a torch.
2
Instructed his friend Max Brod to burn all his work after his death. Max Brod decided to publish it instead.
3
None of his work was published in his lifetime and was only found after his death.
4
He is considered one of the most influential authors of the twentieth century.
5
Worked at an Insurance company.
6
He dreamed of emigrating to Palestine and becoming an artisan/carpenter; later, he contemplated moving to Tel Aviv and opening up a Jewish restaurant with his friend Dora Diamant where she would cook and he would serve as the waiter.
7
He died of tuberculosis which had moved up to his larynx and robbed him of the ability to speak in his last days.
8
His two brothers died as infants in the late 1880's and his three sisters were murdered in the Holocaust.
Writer
Title
Year
Status
Character
The Castle
1968
novel "Das Schloß"
Hora once
1968
TV Series 1 episode
Le fratricide
1967
Short short story
Theatre 625
1966
TV Series book - 1 episode
De grafbewaker
1965
Short story
In der Strafkolonie
1963
TV Movie short story
The Trial
1962
based on the novel by
Das Schloß
1962
TV Movie
Prosessen
1962
TV Movie novel
Ein Bericht für eine Akademie
1962
TV Movie novella
K (Metamorphosis)
1954
Short story
Una confusión cotidiana
1950
Short short story
Shinpan
2017
based on the novel by filming
The Judgment
2016
Short original short story
Danjiki geinin
2016
short story
Der Kübelreiter
2016
Short based on a short story by
Die Verwandlung
2015
Short writer
Brudermord
2015
Short short story
The Metamorphosis
2015
Short based on the novella by
K
2015/II
novel "Das SchloÃY"
Der Bau
2014
novella
Die Verwandlung
2013
Short based on the novella by
Septième Promenade
2013
Video short
Gente en sitios
2013
short story
A Common Confusion
2012
Short story
Metamorphosis
2012/I
based on the novella by
Before the Law
2011
Short writer
Schakale und Araber
2011
Short short story "Schakale und Araber"
The Burrow
2009
Short story
Conversation with the Supplicant
2008
Short based on the short story by
Pratioci
2008
Short story
A Metamorfose
2007
Short
Kafuka: Inaka isha
2007
Short short story "Ein Landarzt"
La metamorfosis
2007
story
L'homme qui attendait
2006
Short story "The Trial"
Nu devant un fantôme
2006
Short novel
In the Penal Colony
2006
Short story
Emancipación
2005
texts
Smesne i druge price
2005
TV Mini-Series novel - 1 episode
Metamorfosis
2004
Short
The Hunger Artist
2004
Short
Menschenkörper
2004
Short short story "Ein Landarzt"
Prevrashchenie
2002
novel "Die Verwandlung"
K
2002
stories
Ein Brudermord
2002
Short original story
Lo strano caso del signor Kappa
2001
novel
Am Ende des Ganges
1999
Short novel "Der Prozess"
Bratobójstwo
1999
Short story
A Common Confusion
1999
Short writer
The Sickroom
1998
Short story
Das Schloß
1997
TV Movie novel: "Das Schloß"
Metamorphosis: Beyond the Screen Door
1997
Video based on the book by
Maalaislääkäri
1995
Short short story "Ein Landarzt"
Nachtland
1995
Short
Inkarnace
1994
novel
Spivachka Zhosefina i myshachyy narod
1994
story
Amerika
1994
novel
La metamorfosis de Franz Kafka
1994
Short based on the novella by
Kamarihaikara
1994
Short short story
La mort de Molière
1994
Video
Procesas
1994
TV Movie novel "Der Prozess"
Zamok
1994
novel "Das Schloss"
Rastreseno gledanje kroz prozor
1993
Short story
Screen Two
1993
TV Series novel - 1 episode
The Trial
1993
novel
Hiilisangolla ratsastaja
1992
TV Short short story
Books: Feed Your Head
1991
TV Mini-Series short book "The Metamorphosis" - 1 episode