Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) was a German-language Jewish writer born in Prague, renowned for his visionary fiction exploring alienation, bureaucracy, and existential dread, with seminal works including the novella 'The Metamorphosis' (1915) and novels 'The Trial' (1925) and 'The Castle' (1926). He worked as an insurance clerk while writing, struggled with tuberculosis diagnosed in 1917, and died at age 40 near Vienna after instructing his friend Max Brod to destroy his unpublished manuscripts, which Brod instead preserved and published. His influence spans literature, philosophy, and culture, coining the term 'Kafkaesque' for surreal, oppressive predicaments.