Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka was born on July 3, 1883, into a middle-class Jewish family in Prague, then part of Austria-Hungary. Influenced by his strict father and feelings of isolation, he studied law and worked at an insurance company—an oppressive job he kept to support his writing. At night, Kafka channeled his anxieties into fiction, often blending ordinary settings with surreal, unsettling events. His most famous work, The Metamorphosis (1915), tells the story of Gregor Samsa, who wakes up transformed into a monstrous vermin, exploring themes of alienation, family duty, guilt, and dehumanization. Kafka published little during his lifetime, but his friend Max Brod ignored Kafka’s wish to destroy unpublished works. Posthumous publications like The Trial, The Castle, and Kafka’s diaries revealed a complex author with hidden humor and vulnerability beneath his darker themes.