Collected Stories by Franz Kafka Read Free Book Online

Deleuze and Felix Guatari,
Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature
, tr. Dana Polan, University of Minnesota Press, 1986.
    Erich Heller, ‘The World of Franz Kafka’, in
The Disinherited Mind
, Penguin, 1951.
    Milan Kundera, ‘In Saint Garta’s Shadow’,
Times Literary Supplement
, May 24, 1981.
    Marthe Robert,
Franz Kafka’s Loneliness
, tr. Ralph Manheim, Faber, 1982.
    I have dealt with aspects of Kafka’s life and work in ‘An Art for the Wilderness’, in
The Lessons of Modernism
, Macmillan, 1977, and in ‘A Bird Was in the Room’, in
Text and Voice: Essays 1981
–
1991
, Carcanet, 1992.

CHRONOLOGY

    Please note: Text is repeated below at a larger size.

DATE
AUTHOR’S LIFE
1883
Birth in Prague (3 July) of Franz Kafka, son of a prosperous Jewish businessman who will later insist on German schools and the German University. Franz Kafka is brought up as a non-orthodox, Western Jew.
1889
Attends German elementary school until 1893. Birth of the first of his three sisters (two younger brothers die in infancy).
1893
Attends German Staatgymnasium until 1901.
1901
Studies Law at the German Karl-Ferdinand University in Prague but is drawn to the literary circles of the city.
1902
Kafka very quickly defines his ideal style – cool, sober and very elegant: a language ‘ohne Schnörkel und Schleier und Warzen’. Meets Max Brod.
1904
Begins ‘Description of a Struggle’.
1906
Receives law degree. Embarks on his year of practical training in Prague Law Courts.
1907
Writes ‘Wedding Preparations in the Country’. Takes temporary position with Assicurazioni Generali, Italian insurance company.
1908
Accepts position in Prague with Workers’ Accident Insurance Company, the Arbeiter-Unfall-Versicherungs-Anstalt.
1909
Eight prose pieces published in
Hyperion.
Trip to Riva and Brescia (with Max and Otto Brod). Writes
Die Aeroplane in Brescia.
1910
Begins to write a diary in which he relentlessly analyses his inner life. Five prose pieces published in
Bohemia.
Trip to Paris (with Max and Otto Brod). Visit to Berlin.
1911
Official trip to Friedland and Reichenberg. Trip (with Max Brod) to Switzerland, Italy and France, writing travelogues. Becomes interested in Yiddish theatre and literature.
1912
Meets a Jewish girl from Berlin, Felice Bauer, to whom he will be engaged twice. The short story ‘Das Urteil’ (‘The Judgment’) is written six weeks later. Visits Leipzig and Weimar. Works on a novel to be called
Der Verschollene
, to be published posthumously in 1927 as
Amerika.
1913
Publication of
Betrachtung
(
Meditation
),
The Judgment
and
Der Heizer
(
The Stoker
). Visits Felice in Berlin. Travels to Vienna and Italy. Meeting with Grete Bloch and beginning of correspondence. (She becomes the mother of his son who dies in 1921, and of whose existence Kafka is ignorant.)
1914
Engaged to Felice. Breaks off his engagement. Visit to Germany. Starts working on
Der Prozess
(
The Trial
). Writes ‘In der Strafkolonie’ (‘In the Penal Colony’).
1915
‘Die Verwandlung’ (‘The Metamorphosis’), an acknowledged masterpiece of precision, lucidity and grotesque implication, is published. Reconciliation with Felice.
1916
Resumes writing after two years’ silence: the fragment of ‘A Country Doctor’, ‘The Hunter Gracchus’ and other stories later included in
A Country Doctor.
1917
Tuberculosis of the lung is confirmed. Relationship with Felice ends. Writes stories, among others: ‘A Report to an Academy’ ‘The Cares of a Family Man’ and ‘The Great Wall of China’. Learning Hebrew.
1919
Stays in various sanatoria. Briefly engaged to Julie Wohryzek who inspires him to write ‘Brief an der Vater’ (‘Letter to his Father’). ‘In the Penal Colony’ and
A Country Doctor
are published.
1920
Meets Milena Jesenska-Pollak, with whom he later corresponds.
1921
Goes back to work with the Workers’ Accident Insurance Company. ‘The Bucket Rider’ published.
1922
Writes
Der Schloss
(
The Castle
), ‘A Hunger