Franz Kafka – Biography and Career
Franz Kafka is one of the greatest and most complex writers of the twentieth century. He is renowned for the enigmatic, dreamy and sometimes absurd stories about people finding it difficult to live. His major works include The Trial, The Castle, America and The Metamorphosis.
Franz Kafka was born in Prague on July 3, 1883 to a Jewish family. Franz was the eldest of six children. His father, Hermann Kafka, was a a successful merchant and a bully, both to his wife, Julie, and to Franz himself.
He was educated in German schools, not Czech. From 1901 to 1906 he attended the Karl Ferdinand University of Prague and in 1906 obtained the degree of Doctor of Law.
During the university years he met a fellow Jew, literary artist, Max Brod, who became his lifelong friend and advocate.
After graduation, he worked for an insurance company most of his life. He didn’t like his job. He referred to it as a “bread job”, a job to pay the bills. His true passion was writing.
During his lifetime, Kafka published only a few short stories and was known as a writer only within his small literary, intellectual circle in Prague. He never finished any of his novels and prior to his death asked his friend, Max Brod, to destroy all of his works after his death.
The Metamorphosis (1915) is the most famous of his works, along with The Trial and The Castle. Novella The Metamorphosis is a disturbing gaze at the absurdity of life. It’s about a man named Gregor, who wakes up one morning changed into a giant beetle. Very bizarre and still very fresh today.
Kafka’s writings were so unusual and unique that his name inspired a word – Kafkaesque. It means Kafka-like, something absurd, bizarre, illogical, abstract and anxious, just like his surreal stories.
Kafka died, unknown and unpublished, of tuberculosis on June 3, 1924 near Vienna. He was 40 years old.
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