Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-language writer of novels and short stories who is widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work, which fuses elements of realism and fantasy, typically features isolated protagonists faced by bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible social-bureaucratic powers, and has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity. His best known works include Die Verwandlung ("The Metamorphosis"), Der Process (The Trial), and Das Schloss (The Castle). The term Kafkaesque has entered the English language to describe situations like those in his writing.

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. He trained as a lawyer, and after completing his legal education he was employed with an insurance company, forcing him to relegate writing to his spare time. Over the course of his life, Kafka wrote hundreds of letters to family and close friends, including his father, with whom he had a strained and formal relationship. He died in 1924 at the age of 40 from tuberculosis.

Franz Kafka in The War That Came Early
Franz Kafka wrote stories of absurd, stifling bureaucracies, that were regarded as insane during his lifetime. By 1941, they seemed painfully realistic. Samuel Goldman, a Jewish professor, explained this to his daughter Sarah, who was attempting to get a marriage license from the Nazis. When Sarah wondered if Kafka was killed for being Jewish, her father explained that consumption was what killed him, and then speculated that Kafka would not have wanted to live to see his futuristic visions come true.