50 Fun Facts About Franz Kafka

In which city was Franz Kafka born?

Prague was then the capital of Bohemia within the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

In which language did Kafka write?

He also spoke Czech, with good grades at school, but never considered himself fluent.

In The Metamorphosis, what does the travelling salesman wake up to find he has become?

The German word Ungeziefer is deliberately vague; Kafka never named a specific creature.

What is the name of the transformed protagonist of The Metamorphosis?

Haruki Murakami's story Samsa in Love reverses the premise.

Which adjective derived from Kafka's name describes nightmarish bureaucratic situations?

Scholars say the term is now so ubiquitous it is often misused.

Which novel follows a man arrested and prosecuted without ever learning his crime?

Kafka began it in 1914 and finished the final chapter but never the whole book.

What is the profession of K., the protagonist of The Castle?

Kafka planned the novel in 1914 but did not start writing it until 1922.

Who was Kafka's friend and literary executor who refused to burn his manuscripts?

Brod said Kafka should have appointed another executor if he really wanted them destroyed.

What did Kafka ask Brod to do with his diaries, manuscripts and letters?

Brod instead published the novels and collected works between 1925 and 1935.

What disease killed Kafka in 1924?

He was 40; his throat made eating so painful that he effectively starved.

What story was Kafka editing on his deathbed?

Grimly, it concerns a man whose craft is starving himself for long periods.

What did Kafka's father use as the logo for his haberdashery business?

Kavka is Czech for jackdaw, and is pronounced like the family name.

How long is Kafka's Letter to His Father?

He complained of his father's authoritarian and demanding character; it was never delivered.

What happened to Kafka's three sisters?

Elli, Valli and Ottla are commemorated on a plaque at the family grave in Prague.

Which of his sisters was Kafka's favourite?

He stayed on the farm she worked at in Zürau after his tuberculosis diagnosis.

What did Kafka study at university after two weeks of chemistry?

The choice pleased his father and offered a range of career possibilities.

What degree was Kafka awarded in June 1906?

He then spent an obligatory unpaid year as a clerk in the civil and criminal courts.

Where did Kafka work from 1908 until he was pensioned off in 1918?

He investigated industrial injuries such as lost fingers and wrote the institute's annual reports.

What word did Kafka's father use for his son's insurance job?

Kafka usually finished work at 2 p.m., leaving the afternoons for writing.

Kafka became a partner in his home city's first factory making what?

He resented how the business ate into his writing time.

Which kind of performing troupe fascinated Kafka from October 1911?

It sparked six months of immersion in Yiddish literature and his exploration of Judaism.

Who was Felice Bauer?

She worked in Berlin for a dictaphone company; his letters to her survive, hers do not.

Which story did Kafka write in a single night in September 1912?

He dedicated it to Felice Bauer and called writing it a complete opening of body and soul.

Which Czech journalist did Kafka have an intense relationship with from 1920?

His letters to her were published as Briefe an Milena.

Who was Kafka's last companion, with whom he lived in Berlin in 1923-24?

The 25-year-old kindergarten teacher reignited his interest in the Talmud.

Why did Kafka's father object to his engagement to Julie Wohryzek?

The couple rented a flat and set a date, but the wedding never happened.

Where did Kafka write the 109 numbered aphorisms later published as the Zürau Aphorisms?

He called the months at Zürau perhaps the best period of his life.

Kafka described writing as a form of what?

He was highly sensitive to noise and wanted absolute quiet to work.

Which of these describes Kafka's diet and drinking?

He was also an accomplished rider, swimmer and rower.

What did Kafka reportedly wear to school to show his socialist sympathies?

His classmate Hugo Bergmann became a Zionist in the same year, 1898.

Kafka was the eldest of how many children?

Two brothers died in infancy, leaving Franz with three younger sisters.

Kafka's first published book, Contemplation, collected how many stories?

Kurt Wolff published it at the end of 1912 and Kafka dedicated it to Max Brod.

Which publisher brought out most of Kafka's work in his lifetime?

Wolff published Contemplation, The Stoker and A Country Doctor.

What title did Brod give Kafka's unfinished novel Der Verschollene?

It is the only work for which Kafka considered an optimistic ending.

Roughly what share of his own work did Kafka burn?

Dora Diamant helped him burn drafts in Berlin.

Which story deals with an elaborate torture and execution device?

It was written in 1914 and published in Leipzig in 1919.

Which Nobel laureate titled his book on the Felice letters Kafka's Other Trial?

Canetti argued Felice was central to the plot of The Trial.

Who called Kafka "the Dante of the twentieth century"?

Nabokov placed him among the greatest writers of the century.

Who said The Metamorphosis showed him "it was possible to write in a different way"?

Murakami paid his own homage with Kafka on the Shore.

Where did Brod take Kafka's unpublished papers when he fled in 1939?

They later became the subject of a long court battle in Israel.

To whom did Brod leave Kafka's unpublished papers when he died in 1968?

Her daughters fought the National Library of Israel over them until 2016.

For how much did Esther Hoffe sell the manuscript of The Trial in 1988?

It went to the German Literary Archive in Marbach am Neckar.

Who confiscated 20 Kafka notebooks kept by his last companion in 1933?

Scholars are still searching for them.

What did the 2023 unexpurgated English edition of Kafka's diaries reveal Brod had cut?

Brod had also removed negative comments about Eastern European Jews.

Roughly how many Kafka drawings did a 2022 Yale book bring to light?

Before 2021 only about 40 were known; Brod rescued some from the wastebasket.

Which Terry Gilliam film is often described with the adjective coined from Kafka's name?

Dark City, The Tenant and Barton Fink get the label too.

Where is Kafka buried?

His tombstone was designed by architect Leopold Ehrmann.

The Franz Kafka Prize requires winners to have a work published in which language?

Winners receive $10,000 and a bronze statuette at Prague's Old Town Hall.

What is 3412 Kafka?

It was discovered at Palomar Observatory in 1983 and is about 6 km across.

Kafka's gymnasium on the Old Town Square was housed in which building?

It was a rigorous classics-oriented school taught in German.