Editing Franz Kafka (section)

{{Short description|Austrian and Czech writer (1883–1924)}}
{{redirect|Kafka}}
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{{Infobox person
| name               = Franz Kafka
| image              = Franz Kafka, 1923.jpg
| caption            = Kafka in 1923
| alt                = Black-and-white photograph of Kafka as a young man with dark hair in a formal suit
| birth_date         = {{birth date|1883|7|3|df=y}}
| birth_place        = [[Prague]], Bohemia, Austria-Hungary
| death_date         = {{death date and age|1924|6|3|1883|7|3|df=y}}
| death_place        = [[Klosterneuburg]], Lower Austria, Austria
| burial_place       = [[New Jewish Cemetery, Prague]]
| occupation         = {{flatlist|
* Novelist
* short story writer
* insurance officer
}}
| alma_mater         = [[German Charles-Ferdinand University]]
| citizenship        = {{plainlist|
* Austria (until 1918){{efn|Based on [[Austrian nationality law|Austro-Hungarian nationality law]] of 1867}}
* [[Czechoslovakia]] (from 1918){{sfn|Koelb|2010|p=12}}{{sfn|Czech Embassy|2012}}
}}
| works              = [[Franz Kafka bibliography|List]]
| style              = [[literary modernism|Modernism]]
| signature          = Franz Kafka's signature.svg
}}
'''Franz Kafka'''{{efn|{{IPAc-en|UK|ˈ|k|æ|f|k|ə}}, {{IPAc-en|US|ˈ|k|ɑː|f|-}};<ref>{{cite web|url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/kafka |title=Kafka |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141226161214/http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/kafka |archive-date=26 December 2014 |url-status=live |work=[[Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary]]}}</ref> {{IPA|de|ˈfʁant͡s ˈkafka|lang|De-Franz Kafka.ogg}}; {{IPA|cs|ˈkafka|lang}}; in Czech, he was sometimes called '''František Kafka'''.}} (3 July 1883&nbsp;– 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from [[Prague]] who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24645937|title=Franz Kafka and Austria: National Background and Ethnic Identity|date=1978|jstor=24645937 |access-date=22 January 2025|last1=Herz |first1=Julius M. |journal=Modern Austrian Literature |volume=11 |issue=3/4 |pages=301–318 | quote=Kafka, after all, was not just a Prague Jew living in Bohemia. He was also, for more than thirty-five years, an Austrian citizen caught in the middle of many cross-currents.... We might wonder whether or to what extent he considered himself an Austrian, for this question must have occurred to him more than once. For the Jews living in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy life was seriously affected by the highly heterogeneous population. }} Quotation on p. 301.</ref> and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of [[20th-century literature]]. His work fuses elements of [[Literary realism|realism]] and the [[fantastique]],<ref>{{cite journal|last=Spindler|first=William|title=Magical Realism: A Typology|year=1993|doi=10.1093/fmls/XXIX.1.75|journal=Forum for Modern Language Studies|volume=XXIX|issue=1|pages=90–93| issn = 0015-8518 }}</ref> and typically features isolated protagonists facing bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible socio-[[bureaucratic]] powers. It has been interpreted as exploring themes of [[social alienation|alienation]], [[existential anxiety]], [[guilt (emotion)|guilt]], and [[absurdity]].<ref name="Britannica">{{Britannica|309545}}</ref> His best-known works include the novella ''[[The Metamorphosis]]'' (1915) and the novels ''[[The Trial]]'' (1924) and ''[[The Castle (novel)|The Castle]]'' (1926). The term ''[[:en:wikt:Kafkaesque|Kafkaesque]]'' has entered the English lexicon to describe bizarre situations like those depicted in his writing.{{sfn|Steinhauer|1983|pp=390–408}}

Kafka was born into a [[middle-class]] German- and [[Yiddish]]-speaking [[Czech Jewish]] family in Prague, the capital of the [[Kingdom of Bohemia]], which belonged to the Austrian part of the [[Austro-Hungarian Empire]] (now the capital of the [[Czech Republic]]).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://dbs.bh.org.il/luminary/kafka-franz|title=Heroes – Trailblazers of the Jewish People|website=Beit Hatfutsot|access-date=14 November 2019|archive-date=31 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200731194725/https://dbs.bh.org.il/luminary/kafka-franz|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.jta.org/2023/01/12/culture/a-new-translation-of-franz-kafkas-diaries-restores-much-of-his-jewish-musings | title=A new translation of Franz Kafka's diaries restores much of his Jewish musings | access-date=2 October 2024 | website=www.jta.org| date=12 January 2023 }}</ref> He trained as a lawyer, and after completing his legal education was employed full-time in various legal and insurance jobs.<ref>Gray, Jefferson M., [https://www.fedbar.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/bookreviewsoct09-pdf-1.pdf review] in ''The Federal Lawyer'', October 2009, of ''Franz Kafka: The Office Writings''. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2009.</ref> Being employed full-time forced Kafka to relegate writing to his spare time. Few of his works were published during his life; the story-collections ''[[Contemplation (short story collection)|Contemplation]]'' (1912) and ''[[A Country Doctor (short story collection)|A Country Doctor]]'' (1919), and individual stories, such as his novella ''The Metamorphosis'', were published in literary magazines, but they received little attention. He wrote hundreds of letters to family and close friends, including his father, with whom he had a strained and formal relationship. He became engaged to several women but never married. He died relatively unknown in 1924 of [[tuberculosis]], aged 40.

Kafka was a prolific writer, but he burned an estimated 90 percent of his total work due to persistent struggles with self-doubt. Much of the remaining 10 percent is lost or otherwise unpublished. In his will, Kafka instructed his close friend and [[literary executor]], [[Max Brod]], to destroy his unfinished works, including his novels ''The Trial'', ''The Castle'', and {{lang|de|[[Amerika (novel)|Amerika]]}} (1927), but Brod ignored these instructions and had much of his work published. Kafka's writings became famous in German-speaking countries after [[World War II]], influencing [[German literature]], and its influence spread elsewhere in the world in the 1960s. It has also influenced artists, composers, and philosophers.