Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924

Biographical note

One of the major German-language novelists and short story writers of the 20th century, whose unique body of writing — most of it published posthumously despite his wish that it be destroyed — has become iconic in Western literature.

He is best known for the creation of Gregor Samsa in Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis), published in 1915, and Joseph K. in Der Prozess (The Trial), published in 1925, which explore the idea of the individual's alienation from his surroundings, his society, and from himself. The adjective "kafkaesque" has entered the language to express the absurd, surreal, and terrifying world that Kafka's work created.

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Works

Short stories

Description of a Struggle (Beschreibung eines Kampfes) (1904-1905)
Wedding Preparations in the Country (Hochzeitsvorbereitungen auf dem Lande) (1907-1908)
The Judgment (Das Urteil) (September 22-23, 1912)
In the Penal Colony (In der Strafkolonie) (October 1914)
The Village Schoolmaster (The Giant Mole) (Der Dorfschullehrer or Der Riesenmaulwurf) (1914-1915)
Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor (Blumfeld, ein älterer Junggeselle) (1915)
The Warden of the Tomb (Der Gruftwächter) (1916-1917) (a play)
A Country Doctor (Ein Landarzt) (1917)
The Hunter Gracchus (Der Jäger Gracchus) (1917)
The Great Wall of China (Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer) (1917)
A Report to an Academy (Ein Bericht für eine Akademie) (1917)
The Refusal (Die Abweisung) (1920)
A Hunger Artist (Ein Hungerkünstler) (1922)
Investigations of a Dog (Forschungen eines Hundes) (1922)
A Little Woman (Eine kleine Frau) (1923)
The Burrow (Der Bau) (1923-1924)
Josephine the Singer, or The Mouse Folk (Josephine, die Sängerin, oder Das Volk der Mäuse) (1924)

Novellas

Metamorphosis (Die Verwandlung) (November-December 1915)
translated by David Wyllie [ read | download ]

Novels

The Trial (Der Prozeß) (1925)
translated by David Wyllie [ read | download ]
The Castle (Das Schloß) (1926)
America (Amerika) (1927)

Diaries and notebooks

Diaries of Franz Kafka
The Blue Octavo Notebooks

Letters

Letters to Felice
Letters to Ottla
Letters to Milena
Franz Kafka: Letters to Family, Friends, and Editors