Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) was a German-language writer. Born in Prague into a Jewish family, he studied law at the German University in Prague and received a doctorate there. From 1908, he worked for an insurance institution while writing literary texts in his spare time. His best-known works include the story “The Metamorphosis” and the unfinished novels “The Trial,” “The Castle,” and “Amerika” (“The Man Who Disappeared”). Kafka died in 1924 in a sanatorium near Klosterneuburg from complications of pulmonary tuberculosis. Much of his work was published only after his death, when his friend Max Brod disregarded Kafka’s wish that his unpublished manuscripts be destroyed.