Franz Kafka

1883–1924

Bohemian-Austrian writer whose nightmarish, bureaucratic visions of guilt and alienation, in works like The Trial and The Metamorphosis, gave the language the adjective “Kafkaesque.” He asked for his unpublished manuscripts to be burned after his death; his friend Max Brod refused.

Timeline of Franz Kafka’s life

Works

• The Metamorphosis (1915)
• The Trial (1925)
• The Castle (1926)
• Amerika (1927)