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Definition: Kafka, Franz from Philip's Encyclopedia

German novelist, b. Czechoslovakia. He published only essays and short stories, such as Metamorphosis (1916), during his life. Kafka asked his friend Max Brod to destroy his works after his death, but Brod and published the trilogy of unfinished novels for which Kafka is best known today: The Trial (1925), The Castle (1926) and Amerika (1927). They are disturbing studies of alienation of the individual in a bureaucratic and totalitarian society.


Kafka, Franz

From Chambers Biographical Dictionary
1883-1924 Austrian novelist Born of German-Jewish parents in Prague, he graduated in law there, and although overwhelmed by a desire to write, found employment (1907-23) as an official in the accident prevention department of the government-sponsored Workers' Accident Insurance Institution. A hypersensitive, introspective person who felt emasculated by his domineering father, he eventually moved to Berlin to live with Dora Dymant in 1923, his only brief spell of happiness before succumbing to a lung disease. He published several short stories and essays, including, "Der Heizer" (1913, "The Boilerman"), "Betrachtungen" (1913, "Meditations") and "Die Verwandlung" (1916, Eng trans "The Transformation", 1933; more widely known as "Metamorphosis"). His three unfinished novels, Der Prozess (1925, Eng trans The Trial , 1937), Das Schloss (1926, Eng trans The Castle , 1937) and Amerika (1927, Eng trans America , 1938), were published posthumously, through his friend Max Brod , and translated…
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Full text Article Kafka, Franz (1883–1924)

From The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales
Influential 20th-century German-language writer from Prague. Kafka's life and works epitomize the alienated individual in the modern world. To portray that world in his fiction, Kafka adapted the dreamlike conditions of the fairy tale with an ironic twist. Whereas fairy-tale characters are at home…
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Czech novelist and short-story writer who wrote in German. After studying law he worked in Prague at a workers’ accident insurance company. He is best known for his bleak studies of the absurdity of the human condition. Ich glaube, mann sollte überhaupt nur solche Bücher lesen, die einen beißen und…
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Full text Article Franz Kafka 1883–1924

From The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Czech novelist, who wrote in German There is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise; because of impatience we cannot return. Collected Aphorisms no. 3, in Shorter Works vol. 1 (1973) Only our concept of time makes it possible for us to speak of the…
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Full text Article DESPAIR

From Collins Dictionary of Quotations
He who despairs over an event is a coward, but he who holds hopes for the human condition is a fool. CAMUS, Albert The Rebel (1951). In the real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning. FITZGERALD, F. Scott The Crack-Up (1945). …
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Full text Article GOALS

From Collins Dictionary of Quotations
Injustice, poverty, slavery, ignorance – these may be cured by reform or revolution. But men do not live only byfighting evils. They live by positive goals, individual and collective, a vast variety of them, seldom predictable, at times incompatible. BERLIN, Isaiah ‘ Political Ideas in the Twentieth…
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Full text Article THE WORLD

From Collins Dictionary of Quotations
This is a singularly ill-contrived world, but not so ill-contrived as all that. [Attr.] The world is made of people who never quite get into the first team and who just miss the prizes at the flower show. BRONOWSKI, Jacob The Face of Violence (1954). For the world, I count it not an inn, but an…
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Full text Article Franz Kafka (1883–1924)

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
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Page from the original diary with sketches by Franz Kafka (1883-1924), Bohemian writer
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Full text Article Kafka

From Merriam-Webster's Collegiate(R) Dictionary Full text Article Biographical Names
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Portrait of writer Franz Kafka (1883-1924) at his birthplace, Historical Centre of Prague (Unesco World Heritage List, 1992), Czech Republic
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