Part of Series
Franz Kafka (1883–1924) vert sett på som ein av dei mest vesentlege forfattarane på 1900-talet, og verka hans er ein uomgjengeleg del av verdslitteraturen sin kanon. I dag er Kafka den mest lesne tyskspråklege forfattaren i verda. Kafka sin langnovelle Forvandlinga (1915) vert sett på som eit av dei mest nyskapande skjønnlitterære verk i det 20. århundre. Forteljinga har blitt dramatisert, filmatisert, omarbeidd, sitert frå og referert til, og er den lengste ferdigskrivne teksten Kafka har gitt ut i si levetid. Novella handlar om den handelsreisande Gregor Samsa som åleine må forsørge familien. Ein dag vaknar han og har blitt til eit insekt. Innesperra i rommet sitt vert han meir og meir isolert og den først ganske så omsorgsfulle systera vender seg etter kvart også frå han, før han til slutt, forbanna og einsam, sovnar inn. Den nye utgivinga inneheld i tillegg til Forvandlinga fire av dei mest kjende forteljingane til Kafka, og dei Jon Fosse tykkjer mest om: Dommen, Ein landsens lækjar, Framfor lova og Ein draum. Forteljingane vart i 1920 utgjevne av Kafka sjølv i samlinga Ein Landarzt.
Author
Prague-born writer Franz Kafka wrote in German, and his stories, such as " The Metamorphosis " (1916), and posthumously published novels, including The Trial (1925), concern troubled individuals in a nightmarishly impersonal world. Jewish middle-class family of this major fiction writer of the 20th century spoke German. People consider his unique body of much incomplete writing, mainly published posthumously, among the most influential in European literature. His stories include "The Metamorphosis" (1912) and " In the Penal Colony " (1914), whereas his posthumous novels include The Trial (1925), The Castle (1926) and Amerika (1927). Despite first language, Kafka also spoke fluent Czech. Later, Kafka acquired some knowledge of the French language and culture from Flaubert, one of his favorite authors. Kafka first studied chemistry at the Charles-Ferdinand University of Prague but after two weeks switched to law. This study offered a range of career possibilities, which pleased his father, and required a longer course of study that gave Kafka time to take classes in German studies and art history. At the university, he joined a student club, named Lese- und Redehalle der Deutschen Studenten, which organized literary events, readings, and other activities. In the end of his first year of studies, he met Max Brod, a close friend of his throughout his life, together with the journalist Felix Weltsch, who also studied law. Kafka obtained the degree of doctor of law on 18 June 1906 and performed an obligatory year of unpaid service as law clerk for the civil and criminal courts. Writing of Kafka attracted little attention before his death. During his lifetime, he published only a few short stories and never finished any of his novels except the very short "The Metamorphosis." Kafka wrote to Max Brod, his friend and literary executor: "Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me ... in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others'), sketches, and so on, [is] to be burned unread." Brod told Kafka that he intended not to honor these wishes, but Kafka, so knowing, nevertheless consequently gave these directions specifically to Brod, who, so reasoning, overrode these wishes. Brod in fact oversaw the publication of most of work of Kafka in his possession; these works quickly began to attract attention and high critical regard. Max Brod encountered significant difficulty in compiling notebooks of Kafka into any chronological order as Kafka started writing in the middle of notebooks, from the last towards the first, et cetera. Kafka wrote all his published works in German except several letters in Czech to Milena Jesenská.
