—Donna Freed
1996
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About the Author
Franz Kafka was born in Prague in 1883, and grew up in and around the thriving Jewish quarter of that city. German was the language spoken at home, and Kafka learned to appreciate its beauties at an early age. After taking a degree in law in 1906, Kafka went to work for a government sponsored insurance company dealing with workman’s compensation cases. His evenings were spent either writing or attending lectures and lively cafes, where he could meet other writers and intellectuals. After several years of labored literary apprenticeship, he wrote—in one evening in 1912—the first story in his characteristic voice and style, “The Judgment.” A steady flow of uniquely conceived and crafted stories followed, including “The Metamorphosis” and “In the Penal Colony,” as well as novels: The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika—all strikingly original but unfinished. Kafka lived and wrote in his parents’ home for much of his adult life. In 1923 he suddenly left Prague to live briefly in Berlin with a woman, Dora Dymant. But he was already suffering with the laryngeal tuberculosis which finally caused his death in 1924.
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