Franz Kafka published little during his life and shared the manuscripts of his novels and short stories mostly with confidants in his literary “Prague Circle.” After contracting tuberculosis, Kafka burdened his closest friend, Max Brod, with destroying his writings after his death. When Kafka died in 1924, he left Brod a letter reiterating his wishes: “Everything in my estate . . . including diaries, manuscripts, letters from others, and myself, drawings, etc., should be burned without exception and without their being read.” Brod ignored the request and instead consolidated Kafka’s literary estate for posterity and published Kafka’s now-famous novels The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika.
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