Franz Kafka was one of the major fiction writers of the 20th century. His unique body of writing—much of which is incomplete and which was mainly published posthumously—is considered to be among the most influential in Western literature.
His stories include "The Metamorphosis" (1912) and "In the Penal Colony" (1914), while his novels are The Trial (1925), The Castle (1926) and Amerika (1927).
Kafka's writing attracted little attention until after his death. During his lifetime, he published only a few short stories and never finished any of his novels, unless "The Metamorphosis" is considered a (short) novel.
Though recent biographers have sought to downplay the commonly held idea that Kafka himself was very much a Gregor Samsa-like character, the young-man-turned-insect of literary fame did live in an apartment that was identical in layout to Kafka’s own.
Since his insurance job was taken just to pay the bills, it shouldn’t be surprising that Kafka fantasized about ways to become wealthy enough to write full time. What may be surprising is that his best idea on that front was the proposed writing of a guide book for people who want to travel through Europe cheaply.
The writer who gave us some of literature’s most unsettling images, a man transformed into a giant bug not least among them, was absolutely terrified by mice. Though he recognized his fears as irrational, that didn't stop him from worrying about mice taking over his apartment.
But he probably didn’t. Still, Kafka is sometimes cited as having invented the first civilian hard hat while working as an insurance officer. While proof of this innovation is scarce, it would be a delightfully strange footnote to his legacy.
Some biographers have made much of the eerie coincidences that sometimes seemed to define Kafka’s life. Among them is the fact that when he moved to Berlin, another Franz Kafka did so as well at the exact same time. More than that, he once dated a woman who rented an apartment from another Franz Kafka.
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