Kafka, the years of insight / Reiner Stach ; translated by Shelley Frisch.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stach, Reiner, author.

Contributor:

Frisch, Shelley Laura, translator.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Authors, Austrian--20th century--Biography.

Authors, Austrian.

Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924.

Kafka, Franz.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (728 pages)

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey ; Oxford : Princeton University Press, 2015.

Summary:

Telling the story of Kafka's final years as never before—the third volume in the acclaimed definitive biographyThis volume of Reiner Stach's acclaimed and definitive biography of Franz Kafka tells the story of the final years of the writer's life, from 1916 to 1924—a period during which the world Kafka had known came to an end. Stach's riveting narrative, which reflects the latest findings about Kafka's life and works, draws readers in with nearly cinematic precision, zooming in for extreme close-ups of Kafka's personal life, then pulling back for panoramic shots of a wider world blighted by World War I, disease, and inflation.In these years, Kafka was spared military service at the front, yet his work as a civil servant brought him into chilling proximity with its grim realities. He was witness to unspeakable misery, lost the financial security he had been counting on to lead the life of a writer, and remained captive for years in his hometown of Prague. The outbreak of tuberculosis and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire constituted a double shock for Kafka, and made him agonizingly aware of his increasing rootlessness. He began to pose broader existential questions, and his writing grew terser and more reflective, from the parable-like Country Doctor stories and A Hunger Artist to The Castle.A door seemed to open in the form of a passionate relationship with the Czech journalist Milena Jesenská. But the romance was unfulfilled and Kafka, an incurably ill German Jew with a Czech passport, continued to suffer. However, his predicament only sharpened his perceptiveness, and the final period of his life became the years of insight.

Contents:

Cover Page

Half-title Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication Page

Contents

Prologue. The Ants of Prague

Chapter One. Stepping Outside the Self

Chapter Two. No Literary Prize for Kafka

Chapter Three. "Civilian Kavka": The Work of War

Chapter Four. The Marvel of Marienbad

Chapter Five. What Do I Have in Common with Jews?

Chapter Six. Kafka Encounters His Readers

Chapter Seven. The Alchemist

Chapter Eight. Ottla and Felice

Chapter Nine. The Country Doctor Ventures Out

Chapter Ten. Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Chapter Eleven. Zürau's Ark

Chapter Twelve. Meditations

Chapter Thirteen. Spanish Influenza, Czech Revolt, Jewish Angst

Chapter Fourteen. The Pariah Girl

Chapter Fifteen. The Unposted Letter to Hermann Kafka

Chapter Sixteen. Merano, Second Class

Chapter Seventeen. Milena

Chapter Eighteen. Living Fires

Chapter Nineteen. The Big Nevertheless

Chapter Twenty. Escape to the Mountains

Chapter Twenty-one. Fever and Snow: Tatranské Matliary

Chapter Twenty-two. The Internal and the External Clock

Chapter Twenty-three. The Personal Myth: The Castle

Chapter Twenty-four. Retiree and Hunger Artist

Chapter Twenty-five. The Palestinian

Chapter Twenty-six. Dora

Chapter Twenty-seven. The Edge of Berlin

Chapter Twenty-eight. Last Sorrow

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Translator's Note

Key to Abbreviations

Notes

Bibliography

Photo Credits

Index

Blank Page.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 647-664) and index.

Other Format:

Print version: Stach, Reiner Kafka

ISBN:

1-4008-6545-X

OCLC:

1281970981