Kafka's Prague

Nearly one hundred years after Franz Kafka’s death, his works continue to intrigue and haunt us. Kafka is regarded as one of the most significant intellectuals of the nineteenth and twentieth century, and even for those who are only barely acquainted with his novels, stories, diaries, or letters, “Kafkaesque” has become a term synonymous with the menacing, unfathomable absurdity of modern existence and bureaucracy. While the significance of his fiction is wide-reaching, Kafka’s writing remains inextricably bound up with his life and work in a particular place: Prague. It is here that the author spent every one of his forty years. Drawing from a range of documents and historical materials, this is the first book specifically dedicated to the relationship between Kafka and Prague. Klaus Wagenbach’s account of Kafka’s life in the city is a meticulously researched insight into the author’s family background, his education and employment, his attitude toward the town of his birth, his literary influences, and his relationships with women. The result is a fascinating portrait of the twentieth century’s most enigmatic writer and the city that provided him with so much inspiration. W. G. Sebald recognized that “literary and life experience overlap” in Kafka’s works, and the same is true of this book.  

Table of Contents:
Introduction by Ritchie Robertson // 1 1. Fame - Too Late for the Author // 11 2. The Son of a Shopkeeper, Lost in Prague // 15 3. What does a Boy Learn at an Imperial and Royal Secondary School? // 33 4. University, Society and Language in the Capital of Bohemia // 52 5. 'Description of a Struggle': the Insurance Official, his Job, his Plans and his Journeys // 75 6. The Only Way to Write! // 97 7. Life or Literature? Kafka's Engagements and The Trial // 118 8. The Wound // 137 9. A Naked Man among the Clothed // 154 Notes // 172 Further Reading // 185 Index // 187

About the Author :
KLAUS WAGENBACH was one of Europe’s leading authorities on Kafka. His renowned publishing house Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, was founded in West Berlin in 1964. Wagenbach was the first German-speaking researcher to access Kafka’s papers in Czechia and Israel. PETER LEWIS has had careers in university teaching and publishing and now works as a freelance translator and author. EWALD OSERS was a Czech translator born in Austria-Hungary.

Review :
`A useful addition to any thinking person's library... Wagenbach's volume on Kafka includes reproductions of Kafka's letters, original book covers and a well-drawn map of Prague showing the places mentioned in the text'  ‘Wonderful … Wagenback is the doyen of Kafka scholars, and is easily the best guide to his life and work: succinct, handsomely produced, and endlessly informative.’