A closer look at the young Kafka
A new biography takes readers past the misimpressions of the modernist’s life
Kafka: The Early Years. By Reiner Stach. Translated by Shelley Frisch. Princeton University Press; 564 pages; $35.
POOR Franz Kafka. His lifetime being misunderstood by his family has been followed by an even longer literary afterlife being misunderstood by the world. According to a new biography by Reiner Stach, Kafka was not the neurotic, world-removed writer of, say, Isaac Bashevis Singer’s 1960s story, “A Friend of Kafka”, in which a friend says Kafka’s inhibitions “impeded him in everything”. Nor was he scarred solely by a difficult relationship with his overbearing father, an idea that Alan Bennett’s play “Kafka’s Dick” toyed with in the 1980s.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline "Refugee avant la lettre"
Culture November 12th 2016
From the November 12th 2016 edition
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