Kafka
Story Stream
Kafka in Jerusalem March 20, 2025
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 destroyi...
The New Semantics of the Kafkaesque January 15, 2025
In conversation with a friend who is well versed in neologism, the discussion often returns to Franz Kafka. Trace the roots of any word back far enough and you’ll find historical context largely removed from contemporary meaning, but Franz Kafka and ...
Three Kafkaesque Novels from Around the World September 16, 2024
Recently, my friend Michael Barron emailed me with a book recommendation—Kadare’s The Palace of Dreams—and a question: was I still doing book recommendations on Counter Craft? I interview authors with new books out, but it has been a while since I wr...
Streaming Kafka June 10, 2024
One hundred years ago this week, Franz Kafka lay on his deathbed, coughing up blood. By his side was his last, most devoted girlfriend, Dora Diamant, with whom he had fantasized about emigrating to Palestine. Now he was too feeble to crawl out of bed...
The Vacuous Politics of Franz Kafka June 10, 2024
We have been lied to about Kafka. Our received image is that of a morose manic depressive, a gloomy and sickly bundle of nerves hacking away at his craft in isolation, like some Lana del Rey avant la lettre. But as shown by his diaries, published afr...
A Kafkaesque Centenary June 04, 2024
Max Brod has a lot to answer for. As the closest thing Franz Kafka had to a best friend, and more pertinently also his literary executor, Brod was given clear instructions that he was to destroy all Kafka’s unpublished work following his death, which...
