Why you should read Kafka before you waste your life

by J. M. Hawes

Everybody know the face of Franz Kafka, whether they have read any of his works or not. And that brooding face carries instant images; bleak and threatening visions of an inescapable bureaucracy, nightmarish transformations, uncanny predictions of the Holocaust. But while Kafka's genius is beyond question, the image of a mysterious, sickly, shadowy figure who was scarcely know in his own lifetime bears no resemblance to the historical reality.