Franz Kafka

(1883 - 1924)

Franz Kafka’s friend Max Brod, who later oversaw the posthumous publication of Kafka’s The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika, praised his writing in an essay in 1907; Kafka published his first work, eight sketches under the title “Meditation,” the following year. Brod once recalled how Kafka read aloud with a “rhythmic sweep, a dramatic fire, a spontaneity such as no actor ever achieves.”