{{Infobox Writer <!-- for more information see :Template:Infobox Writer/doc -->
| name        =   Franz Kafka
| image       =   Kafka1906.jpg
| caption     =   Photograph of Franz Kafka taken in 1906
| birthdate  =    
| birthplace =   Prague, Austria-Hungary
| deathdate  =   
| deathplace =   Kierling near Vienna, Austria
| occupation  =   insurance officer, factory manager, novelist, short story writer
| nationality =   Jewish-Bohemian (Austria-Hungary)
| genre       =   novel, short story
| movement    =   modernism, existentialism, precursor to magical realism
| notableworks =   The Castle, The Metamorphosis
| influences  =   Schopenhauer, von Kleist, Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Dickens, Nietzsche, Walser
| influenced  = Pinter, Nabokov, Camus, Musil, Fellini, Arendt, Benjamin, Singer, Borges, García Márquez, Fuentes, Kundera, Jančar, Rushdie, Murakami, Grass, Park, Vasquez, Filipacchi, Salinger, Lynch, Bukowski
| signature   = kafkasignature.jpg}}

thumb|Kafka at the age of five.
'''Franz Kafka''' () (incomplete and was mainly published posthumously&mdash;is among the most influential in Western literature.<ref name="esp">Contijoch, Francesc Miralles (2000) "Franz Kafka". ''Oceano Grupo Editorial, S.A. Barcelona.'' ISBN 84-494-1811-9.</ref>

His stories, such as ''The Castle'' (1926), concern troubled individuals in a nightmarishly impersonal and bureaucratic world.

==Family==
Kafka was born into a middle-class, German-speaking ritual slaughterer, and came to Prague from Osek, a Czech-speaking Jewish village near Písek in southern Bohemia. After working as a traveling sales representative, he established himself as an independent retailer of men's and women's fancy goods and accessories, employing up to 15 people and using a jackdaw (''kavka'' in Czech) as his business logo. Kafka's mother, Julie (1856&mdash;1934), was the daughter of Jakob Löwy, a prosperous brewer in Poděbrady, and was better educated than her husband.<ref>Gilman, Sander L. (2005) ''Franz Kafka''. Reaktion Books Ltd. London, UK. p.20-21. ISBN 1-88187-264-5.</ref> 

Kafka was the eldest of six children.<ref>Hamalian ([1975], 3).</ref> He had two younger brothers, Georg and Heinrich, who died at the ages of fifteen months and six months, respectively, before Kafka was seven, and three younger sisters, Gabriele ("Elli") (1889–1941), Valerie ("Valli") (1890–1942), and Ottilie ("Ottla") (1891–1943). On business days, both parents were absent from the home. His mother helped to manage her husband's business and worked in it as much as 12 hours a day. The children were largely reared by a series of governesses and servants.

Kafka's sisters were sent with their families to the Theresienstadt and then on October 7, 1943 to the Auschwitz, where 1267 children and 51 guardians, including Ottla, were gassed to death on their arrival.<ref>Danuta Czech: Kalendarz wydarzeń w KL Auschwitz, Oświęcim 1992, p. 534. In the archives of the camp a list with the names of the guardians was preserved.</ref>

==Education==
thumb|left|Kinsky Palace where Kafka attended gymnasium and where his father later owned a shop
Kafka learned German as his first language, but he was also fluent in Czech. Later, Kafka acquired some knowledge of Jewish education was limited to his ''Bar Mitzvah'' celebration at 13 and going to the synagogue four times a year with his father.<ref>[http://www.kafka-franz.com/kafka-Biography.htm Franz Kafka Biography] www.kafka-franz.com</ref> After elementary school, he was admitted to the rigorous classics-oriented state ''gymnasium'', ''Altstädter Deutsches Gymnasium'', an academic secondary school with eight grade levels, where German was also the language of instruction, at Old Town Square, within the Kinsky Palace. He completed his Maturita exams in 1901. 

Admitted to the German Charles-Ferdinand University of Prague, Kafka first studied chemistry, but switched after two weeks to law. This offered a range of career possibilities, which pleased his father, and required a longer course of study that gave Kafka time to take classes in German studies and art history. At the university, he joined a student club, named ''Lese- und Redehalle der Deutschen Studenten'', which organized literary events, readings and other activities. In the end of his first year of studies, he met Max Brod, who would become a close friend of his throughout his life, together with the journalist Felix Weltsch, who also studied law. Kafka obtained the degree of Doctor of Law on June 18, 1906 and performed an obligatory year of unpaid service as law clerk for the civil and criminal courts.<ref name="esp"/>

==Work==  
On November 1, 1907, he was hired at the Assicurazioni Generali, a huge Italian insurance company, where he worked for nearly a year. His correspondence, during that period, witnesses that he was unhappy with his working time schedule - from 8 p.m. (20:00) until 6 a.m. (06:00) - as it made it extremely difficult for him to concentrate on his writing. On July 15, 1908, he resigned, and two weeks later found more congenial employment with the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. His father often referred to his son's job as insurance officer as a "Brotberuf", literally "bread job", a job done only to pay the bills. However, he did not show any signs of indifference towards his job, as the several promotions that he received during his career suggest that he was a hardworking employee. The contention, made by Peter Drucker in ''Managing in the Next Society'', that Kafka invented the first civilian hard hat and received a medal for this invention in 1912 because it reduced Bohemian steel mill deaths to fewer than 25 per thousand employees, is not supported by any document from his employer's archives.<ref>Franz Kafka, ''Amtliche Schriften''. Eds. K. Hermsdorf & B. Wagner (2004) (Engl. transl.: ''The Office Writings''. Eds. S. Corngold, J. Greenberg & B. Wagner. Transl. E. Patton with R. Hein (2008)); cf. H.-G. Koch & K. Wagenbach (eds.), ''Kafkas Fabriken'' (2002).</ref> He was also given the task of compiling and composing the annual report and was reportedly quite proud of the results, sending copies to friends and family. In parallel, Kafka was also committed to his literary work. Together with his close friends Max Brod and Felix Weltsch, these three were called "Der enge Prager Kreis", the close Prague circle, which was part of a broader Prague Circle, "a loosely knit group of German-Jewish writers who contributed to the culturally fertile soil of Prague during the 1880s until after World War I."<ref name="Czermak">''The Metamorphosis and Other Stories, notes. Herberth Czermak. Lincoln, Nebraska: Cliffs Notes 1973, 1996.</ref>

In 1911, Karl Hermann, spouse of his sister Elli, proposed Kafka collaborate in the operation of an asbestos factory known as Prager Asbestwerke Hermann and Co. Kafka showed a positive attitude at first, dedicating much of his free time to the business. During that period, he also found interest and entertainment in the performances of Yiddish theatre, despite the misgivings of even close friends such as Max Brod, who usually supported him in everything else. Those performances also served as a starting point for his growing relationship with Judaism.

==Later years==  
In 1912, at Max Brod's home, Kafka met Felice Bauer, who lived in Berlin and worked as a representative for a dictaphone company. Over the next five years they corresponded a great deal, met occasionally, and twice were engaged to be married. Their relationship finally ended in 1917. 

In 1917, Kafka began to suffer from tuberculosis, which would require frequent convalescence during which he was supported by his family, most notably his sister Ottla. Despite his fear of being perceived as both physically and mentally repulsive, he impressed others with his boyish, neat, and austere good looks, a quiet and cool demeanor, obvious intelligence and dry sense of humor.<ref>[http://www.amrep.org/articles/3_3c/disappearing.html Ryan McKittrick speaks with director Dominique Serrand and Gideon Lester about Amerika] www.amrep.org</ref> 

In 1921 he developed an intense relationship with Czech journalist and writer Milena Jesenská. In July 1923, throughout a vacation to Graal-Müritz on the Baltic Sea, he met Dora Diamant and briefly moved to Berlin in the hope of distancing himself from his family's influence to concentrate on his writing. In Berlin, he lived with Dora Diamant, a 25-year-old kindergarten teacher from an orthodox Jewish family, who was independent enough to have escaped her past in the ghetto. Dora became his lover, and influenced Kafka's interest in the Talmud.<ref>[http://www.atlegerhardsen.com/pages/lothar_hempel/presse_eng_0802.htm Lothar Hempel] www.atlegerhardsen.com</ref> 

It is generally agreed that Kafka suffered from naturopathic treatments, such as a vegetarian diet and the consumption of large quantities of unpasteurized milk. However, Kafka's tuberculosis worsened; he returned to Prague, then went to Dr. Hoffmann's parenteral nutrition had not yet been developed, there was no way to feed him (a fate resembling that of Gregor in the ''Metamorphosis'' and the main character of ''A Hunger Artist''). His body was ultimately brought back to Prague where he was interred on Prague-Žižkov.

==Personal views==
Kafka was not formally involved in Jewish religious life, but he showed a great interest in Jewish culture and spirituality. He was deeply fascinated by the Jews of Eastern Europe who he regarded as having an intensity of spiritual life Western Jews did not have. Yet he was at times alienated from Judaism and Jewish life: "What have I in common with Jews?  I have hardly anything in common with myself and should stand very quietly in a corner, content that I can breathe."

During the later years of his life, Kafka developed an interest in moving to Mandate Palestine. He dreamed of going with Dora Diamant to create a new kind of life in the Land of Israel. Here too he was perhaps influenced by his Zionist friends Hugo Bergmann and Max Brod. Tragically, Kafka's tuberculosis was too advanced and he was unable to realize this dream of his final years.

==Literary work==
thumb|260px|Franz Kafka's grave in Prague-Žižkov. 
Kafka published only a few short stories during his lifetime, a small part of his work, and never finished any of his novels (with the possible exception of ''The Metamorphosis'', which some consider to be a short novel). His writing attracted little attention until after his death. Prior to his death, he instructed his friend and literary executor Max Brod to destroy all of his manuscripts. His lover, Dora Diamant, partially executed his wishes, secretly keeping up to 20 notebooks and 35 letters until they were confiscated by the Gestapo in 1933. An ongoing international search is being conducted for these missing Kafka papers. Brod overrode Kafka's instructions and instead oversaw the publication of most of the work in his possession, which soon began to attract attention and high critical regard.
 
All of Kafka's published works, except several letters he wrote in Czech to Milena Jesenská, were written in German.

===Style of writing===
Kafka often made extensive use of a trait special to the German language allowing for long sentences that sometimes can span an entire page. Kafka's sentences then deliver an unexpected impact just before the full stop - that being the finalizing meaning and focus. This is achieved due to the construction of certain sentences in German which require that the verb be positioned at the end of the sentence. Such constructions cannot be duplicated in English, so it is up to the translator to provide the reader with the same effect found in the original text.<ref>Kafka (1996, xi).</ref> One such instance of a Kafka translator's quandary is demonstrated in the first sentence of ''The Metamorphosis''.
 
Another virtually insurmountable problem facing the translator is how to deal with the author's intentional use of ambiguous terms or of words that have several meanings. An example is Kafka's use of the German noun ''Verkehr''&nbsp; in the final sentence of ''The Judgment''.  Literally, ''Verkehr'' means intercourse and, as in English, can have either a sexual or non-sexual meaning; in addition, it is used to mean transport or traffic. The sentence can be translated as: "At that moment an unending stream of traffic crossed over the bridge."<ref>Kafka (1996, 75).</ref> What gives added weight to the obvious double meaning of 'Verkehr'&nbsp; is Kafka's confession to his friend and biographer Max Brod that when he wrote that final line, he was thinking of "a violent ejaculation." In the English translation, of course, what can 'Verkehr'&nbsp; be but "traffic?"<ref>Kafka (1996, xii).</ref>

===Critical interpretation===
right|260px|thumb|Bronze statue of Franz Kafka in Prague. 
Critics have interpreted Kafka's works in the context of a variety of literary schools, such as The Castle'',<ref name=interpretation/> whereas others point to anarchism as an inspiration for Kafka's anti-bureaucratic viewpoint. Still others have interpreted his works through the lens of Judaism (Borges made a few perceptive remarks in this regard), through Freudianism<ref name=interpretation/> (because of his familial struggles), or as allegories of a metaphysical quest for God (Thomas Mann was a proponent of this theory).

Themes of alienation and persecution are repeatedly emphasized, and the emphasis on this quality, notably in the work of Marthe Robert, partly inspired the counter-criticism of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, who argued that there was much more to Kafka than the stereotype of a lonely figure writing out of anguish, and that his work was more deliberate, subversive, and more "joyful" than it appears to be.

Furthermore, an isolated reading of Kafka's work — focusing on the futility of his characters' struggling without the influence of any studies on Kafka's life was worthless — reveals the humor of Kafka. Kafka's work, in this sense, is not a written reflection of any of his own struggles, but a reflection of how people invent struggles. 

Biographers have said that it was common for Kafka to read chapters of the books he was working on to his closest friends, and that those readings usually concentrated on the humorous side of his prose. Milan Kundera &nbsp;refers to the essentially surrealist humour of Kafka as a main predecessor of later artists such as Federico Fellini, Gabriel García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes and Salman Rushdie. For García Márquez, it was as he said the reading of Kafka's ''The Metamorphosis''&nbsp; that showed him "that it was possible to write in a different way". <!--This whole article, but particularly this section, needs sources-->

===Publications and dates=== 
Much of Kafka's work was unfinished, or prepared for publication posthumously by Max Brod. The novels ''The Castle'' (which stopped mid-sentence and had ambiguity on content), ''Amerika'' (Kafka's original title was ''The Man who Disappeared'') were all prepared for publication by Brod. It appears Brod took a few liberties with the manuscript (moving chapters, changing the German and cleaning up the punctuation), and thus the original German text was altered prior to publication. The editions by Brod are generally referred to as the Definitive Editions.

According to the publisher's note<ref>[http://www.jhom.com/bookshelf/kafka/intro.html A Kafka For The 21st Century by Arthur Samuelson, publisher, Schocken Books] www.jhom.com</ref> for ''The Castle'',<ref>Oxford Marbach, Germany.<ref>(publisher's note, ''The Trial'', Schocken Books, 1998</ref>

Subsequently, Pasley headed a team (including Amerika'') published in 1983. These are all called the 'Critical Editions' or the 'Fischer Editions'. The German critical text of these, and Kafka's other works, may be found online at ''The Kafka Project''.<ref>[http://www.kafka.org/index.php?project The Kafka Project - Kafka's Works in German According to the Manuscript] www.kafka.org</ref>

There is another Kafka Project based at San Diego State University, which began in 1998 as the official international search for Kafka's last writings. Consisting of 20 notebooks and 35 letters to Kafka's last companion, Dora Diamant (later, Dymant-Lask), this missing literary treasure was confiscated from her by the Gestapo in Berlin 1933. The Kafka Project's four-month search of government archives in Berlin in 1998 uncovered the confiscation order and other significant documents. In 2003, the Kafka Project discovered three original Kafka letters, written in 1923. Building on the search conducted by Max Brod and Klaus Wagenbach in the mid-1950s, the Kafka Project at SDSU has an advisory committee of international scholars and researchers, and is calling for volunteers who want to help solve a literary mystery.<ref>Sources: Kafka, by Nicolas Murray, pages 367, 374; Kafka's Last Love, by Kathi Diamant; "Summary of the Results of the Kafka Project Berlin Research June 1-September 1998" published in December 1998 Kafka Katern, quarterly of the Kafka Circle of the Netherlands. More information is available at http://www.kafkaproject.com</ref>

===Translations===
There are two primary sources for the translations based on the two German editions. The earliest English translations were by Edwin and Willa Muir and published by The Trial, Definitive'' and ''The Castle, Definitive'' among other writings. Definitive Editions are generally accepted to have a number of biases and to be dated in interpretation.<!-- Not sourced since this is written in the translators notes, multiple editor's notes, book reviews (See B&N, forward.com, etc.) and none of them are sourced. Appeared to be generally accepted. Toddwill-->

After Pasley and Schillemeit completed their recompilation of the German text, the new translations were completed and published -- ''The Castle, Critical'' by Mark Harman (The Trial, Critical'' by Breon Mitchell (Schocken Books, 1998) and ''Amerika: The Man Who Disappeared'' by Michael Hoffman (New Directions Publishing, 2004). These editions are often noted as being based on the restored text.

==Bibliography==

===Short stories===
* ''Description of a Struggle'' (''Beschreibung eines Kampfes'', 1904-1905)
* ''Wedding Preparations in the Country'' (''Hochzeitsvorbereitungen auf dem Lande'', 1907-1908)
* ''Contemplation'' (Betrachtung, 1904-1912)
* ''The Judgment'' (''Das Urteil'' - September 22-23, 1912)
* ''The Stoker''
* ''In the Penal Colony'' (''In der Strafkolonie'', October 1914)
* ''The Village Schoolmaster (The Giant Mole)'' (''Der Dorfschullehrer'' or ''Der Riesenmaulwurf'', 1914-1915)
* ''Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor'' (''Blumfeld, ein älterer Junggeselle'', 1915)
* ''The Warden of the Tomb'' (''Der Gruftwächter'', 1916-1917), the only play Kafka wrote
* ''The Hunter Gracchus'' (''Der Jäger Gracchus'', 1917)
* ''The Great Wall of China'' (''Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer'', 1917)
* ''A Report to an Academy'' (''Ein Bericht für eine Akademie'', 1917)
* ''Jackals and Arabs'' (''Schakale und Araber'', 1917)
* ''A Country Doctor'' (''Ein Landarzt'', 1919)
* ''A Message from the Emperor'' (''Eine kaiserliche Botschaft'', 1919)
* ''An Old Leaf'' (''Ein altes Blatt'', 1919)
* ''The Refusal'' (''Die Abweisung'', 1920)
* ''A Hunger Artist'' (''Ein Hungerkünstler'', 1924)
* ''Investigations of a Dog'' (''Forschungen eines Hundes'', 1922)
* ''A Little Woman'' (''Eine kleine Frau'', 1923)
* ''First Sorrow'' (''Erstes Leid'', 1921-1922)
* ''The Burrow'' (''Der Bau'', 1923-1924)
* ''Josephine the Singer, or The Mouse Folk'' (''Josephine, die Sängerin, oder Das Volk der Mäuse'', 1924)
Many collections of the stories have been published, and they include:
* ''The Penal Colony: Stories and Short Pieces''. New York: Schocken Books, 1948.
* ''The Complete Stories'', (ed. Nahum N. Glatzer). New York: Schocken Books, 1971.
* ''The Basic Kafka''. New York: Pocket Books, 1979.
* ''The Sons''. New York: Schocken Books, 1989.
* ''The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories''. New York: Schocken Books, 1995.
* ''Contemplation''. Twisted Spoon Press, 1998.
* ''Metamorphosis and Other Stories''. Penguin Classics, 2007

===Novellas===
* ''The Metamorphosis'' (''Die Verwandlung'' - November-December 1915)

===Novels===
* ''The Trial'' (''Der Prozeß'' - 1925) (includes short story Before the Law)
* ''The Castle'' (''Das Schloß'' - 1926)
* ''Amerika'' (''Amerika'' or ''Der Verschollene'' - 1927)

===Diaries and notebooks===
*''Diaries 1910-1923''<ref>http://victorian.fortunecity.com/vermeer/287/diary1910.htm#</ref>
*''The Blue Octavo Notebooks''

===Letters===
*''Letter to His Father''
*''Letters to Felice''
*''Letters to Ottla''
*''Letters to Milena''
*''Letters to Family, Friends, and Editors''

===Works about Kafka===
*Brod, Max. ''Franz Kafka: A Biography.'' New York: Da Capo Press, 1995. ISBN 0-306-80670-3 
*Brod, Max. ''The Biography of Franz Kafka'', tr. from the German by G. Humphreys Roberts. London: Secker & Warburg, 1947.  
*Calasso, Roberto. ''K.'' Knopf, 2005. ISBN 1-4000-4189-9
*Citati, Pietro, ''Kafka'', 1987. ISBN 0-7859-2173-7 
*Coots, Steve. ''Franz Kafka (Beginner's Guide)''. Headway, 2002, ISBN 0-340-84648-8 
*Deleuze, Gilles & Félix Guattari. ''Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature (Theory and History of Literature, Vol 30).'' Minneapolis, University of Minnesota, 1986. ISBN 0-8166-1515-2 
*Glatzer, Nahum N., ''The Loves of Franz Kafka''. New York: Schocken Books, 1986. ISBN 0-8052-4001-2
*Greenberg, Martin, ''The Terror of Art: Kafka and Modern Literature''. New York, Basic Books, 1968. ISBN 0-465-08415-X 
*Gordimer, Nadine (1984). "Letter from His Father" in ''Something Out There'', London, Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-007711-1
*Hayman, Ronald. ''K, a Biography of Kafka''. London: Phoenix Press, 2001.ISBN 1-84212-415-3 
*Janouch, Gustav. ''Conversations with Kafka''. New York: New Directions Books, second edition 1971. (Translated by Goronwy Rees.)ISBN 0-8112-0071-X 
*Kwinter, Sanford. ''Architectures of Time: Toward a Theory of the Event in Modernist Culture.'' Cambridge, MIT Press, 2002. ISBN 0-262-11260-4
*Murray, Nicholas. ''Kafka.'' New Haven: Yale, 2004.
*Pawel, Ernst. ''The Nightmare of Reason: A Life of Franz Kafka.'' New York: Vintage Books, 1985. ISBN 0-374-52335-5 
*Thiher, Allen (ed.). ''Franz Kafka: A Study of the Short Fiction'' (Twayne's Studies in Short Fiction, No. 12). ISBN 0-8057-8323-7

thumb|180px|Franz Kafka, aproximativ în 1917
'''Franz Kafka''' (* 3 iulie 1883, Praga - 3 iunie 1924, Viena) scriitor evreu de limbă germană originar din Praga.  

==Biografie==

right|thumb|Statuia de bronz al lui Franz Kafka din Praga

Franz Kafka s-a născut la Regatului Boemiei, care făcea parte din Imperiul Austro-Ungar, într-o familie evreiască, fiu al comerciantului ''Hermann Kafka'' şi al ''Juliei Kafka'', născută ''Löwy''. Limba maternă a lui Kafka, în care a şi scris mai târziu, a fost germana, în acel timp limba oficială a ţării şi vorbită în particular de peste zece la sută din populaţia oraşului Praga. 

După absolvirea liceului german, Kafka a studiat dreptul, şi-a luat doctoratul, apoi a lucrat un timp la tribunalul din Praga şi ulterior ca avocat la compania de asigurări ''Assicurazioni Generali'' (1908-1922. A părăsit arareori Praga, a călătorit în Italia, Germania, Austria si a vizitat oraşul Arad, trăind într-un "cerc strâmt" până către sfârşitul vieţii. 

În 1909, Kafka a debutat literar cu primele schiţe de proză publicate în revista literară ''Hyperion'', care apărea la München. A întreţinut o corespondenţă asiduă, pe durata a circa patru ani, cu ''Felice Bauer'' şi apoi şi cu ''Milena Jesenska'', o cunoscută scriitoare cehă, care i-a tradus în limba cehă câteva povestiri. Scriitorul a lăsat şi un jurnal intim, atipic si greu de clasificat. 

Iniţial, Kafka a suferit de o depresie cronică, fapt demonstrat de majoritatea scrisorilor trimise părinţilor, surorii sale ''Ottla'' şi prietenului său Max Brod. A încercat să se vindece de depresie recurgând la soluţia medicinii naturiste.

Îmbolnăvindu-se de tuberculoză (1917), pe fundalul unui regim vegetarian, care includea şi lapte nepasteurizat, Kafka a fost internat într-un sanatoriu din Italia. Starea sănătăţii i s-a agravat şi, începând din 1922 nu  a mai putut lucra. Un nou tratament în sanatoriul din Kierling, lângă Viena nu a dat roade. Franz Kafka a murit la 3 iunie 1924 în braţele prietenului său, doctorul ''Robert Klopstock'', şi ale ultimei sale iubite, ''Dora Dymant''. 

Post-mortem, opera sa literară, rămasă în cea mai mare parte inedită, a fost publicată de poetul Max Brod, prietenul şi legatarul său testamentar, cel ce nu a dus la îndeplinire rugămintea lui Kafka să ardă manuscrisele.

==Opera literară==

Concepţia sa de viaţă, influenţată de filozofia lui Kierkegaard, îşi găseşte expresia într-o modalitate artistică originală, în care elemente de suprarealism se îmbină cu o formă de exprimare proprie expresionismului. Prezentând strivirea personalităţii în societate, Kafka înfăţişează destinul fără perspectivă al omului într-o viziune halucinantă, grotescă, impregnată de anxietate. Romanele şi nuvelele sale exprimă fie sentimentul tragic, împins la paroxism, al individului expus presiunii destructive al unui monstruos aparat birocratic (''Procesul'', 1925; ''Colonia penitenciară'', 1919), fie imposibilitatea omului de a descifra sensul existenţei sale civice (''Castelul'', 1926), fie dezintegrarea relaţiilor interumane (''Metamorfoză'', 1915). Impresia de coşmar şi tensiunea dramatică, specifice scrierilor lui Kafka, sunt sugerate prin suprapunerea logicului cu absurdul, într-o formă parabolică, obsesivă. Kafka a exercitat o puternică influenţă asupra literaturii contemporane...

<!--thumb|200px|left| Piatra tombala a lui Franz Kafka-->

==Opere publicate în timpul vieţii==

* Opinie (''Betrachtung''), 1913
* Verdictul (''Das Urteil''), 1913
* Fochistul (''Der Heizer''), 1913
* Metamorfoză (''Die Verwandlung''), 1915
* Colonia penitenciară (''In der Strafkolonie''), 1919
* Un medic de ţară (''Ein Landarzt''), 1919
* Prima durere (''Erstes Leid''), 1921

==Opere publicate postum==

* Procesul (''Der Prozess''), 1925
* Castelul (''Das Schloß''), 1926
* America (''Amerika''), 1927
* La construirea zidului chinezesc (''Beim Bau der chinesischen Mauer''), 1931
* Scrisori către Felice( ''Briefe an Felice'')
* Scrisori către Milena (''Briefe an Milena'')
* Jurnal

==Biografii ale lui Kafka==

* Brod, Max, ''Franz Kafka. Eine Biographie. Erinnerungen und Dokumente'', Heinrich Mercy Sohn Verlag, 1937 
* Brod, Max, ''Franz Kafka. A Biography. Memories and Recollections'', New York, Shocken, 1956
* Deleuze, Gilles & Felix Guattari. ''Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature (Theory and History of Literature, Vol 30).'' Minneapolis, University of Minnesota, 1986.
* Greenberg, Martin, ''The terror of art; Kafka and modern literature''. New York, Basic Books,1968.
* Pawel, Ernst. ''The Nightmare of Reason: A Life of Franz Kafka.'' New York : Vintage Books, 1985.

==Monografii critice in limba romană==
* Radu Enescu, ''Franz Kafka'', Editura pentru Literatură Universală, 1968, monografie, ediţia a II, Eion, 2006
* Iulian Băicuş, ''Esenţa înfricoşătoare a lui Franz Kafka'', Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti, 2006