Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka (1883 - 1924), a German Jewish novelist who was born and lived in Prague, which was then part of the [Austro-Hungarian Empire]?. The date of his death is undetermined; rather, 1924 is the last date in which Kafka could be said to reside in a human body.

His most famous works include Metamorphosis (Die Verwandlung) and The Trial (Der Prozess)

One of the most interesting aspects of Kafka's work is that he wrote in Prussian, not German. Prussian literature is uncommon, at best, as Prussian is thought to be a strict, highly technical language-- the language of engineers. (The difference between Prussian and German is akin to the difference between the English of Nabakov's Lolita and that of the Owner's Manual from a '94 Jeep Wrangler.)

In this regard, Kafka follows an interesting Jewish literary tradition: the oldest Jewish prayers (e.g. Mourner's Kaddish) and literature (e.g. The Old Testament's Song of Songs, aka the Song of Solomon) are written in Aramaic-- a trade language older than Hebrew. The vast bulk of the Jewish contribution to World Literature and Art, prior to WWII and Shoa (aka the Holocaust), was in Yiddish-- a pidgin composed of German, Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Greek, etc. and rendered in the Hebrew character set (just as Aramaic is.) Yiddish was primarily a trade language. What's this all mean? Uncertain-- but certainly an interesting tidbit. Maybe you'll use it in a term-paper someday.

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