Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self. Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka (German pronunciation: [fʁants ˈkafka]; 3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was an influential German-languageauthor of novels and short stories. Critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as among the greatest writers of the 20th century. The term "Kafkaesque" has become part of the English language.

Kafka was born to middle class, German-speaking, Jewish parents, in Prague, Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The house in which he was born, on the Old Town Square next to Prague's Church of St Nicholas, now contains a permanent exhibition devoted to the author.

Most of Kafka's writing, including the large body of his unfinished work, was published posthumously.