Kafka, Franz ___ 1883-1924 ___ Czech ___ writer

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Kafka was born into a Jewish German-speaking family in Prague. He had two brothers, both of whom died very young, and three sisters. He grew up fearing his father to the point of stuttering in his presence, but, nevertheless, continued to live at home for much of his adult life. He trained as a lawyer at the University of Prague and then was employed by the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute, a job which he hated. Suffering from insomnia, he began writing at night. He was chronically ill with different complaints, including tuberculosis (diagnosed in 1917) which eventually killed him. In 1902 he became friends with Max Brod who later did much to promote Kafka's writing. Kafka was engaged twice, to Felice Bauer and Julie Wohryzek, and, in the early 1920s, he fell in love with a married Czech writer Milena Jesenská Pollak. In the last year of his life, he met Dora Diamant, a Zionist and moved to Berlin to live with her. Kafka is a giant in the literature world, a reputation which stems largely from three extraordinary novels - 'America', 'The Trial', and 'The Castle'. He also wrote a diary which was later edited by Brod. In fact, Brod ignored Kafka's wish that his writing be destroyed. In 1939, Brod moved to what was then Palestine to escape the Nazis, and took all of Kafka's papers with him.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio
The Diary Review - Brod's diaries in Kafkaesque story, I am entirely alone

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1910-1923 ___ literary travel self love/sex

WEB TEXT LINKS
etext (in German)
about
many short extracts (twitter)

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
 

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
The Diaries of Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka: The Diaries 1910-1923
The Blue Octavo Notebooks
 

May 2005, July 2008, April 2013
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.