A Dream

by Franz Kafka

»Diese ungeheure Welt, die ich im Kopf habe. Aber wie mich befreien und sie befreien, ohne zu zerreißen. Und tausendmal lieber zerreißen, als in mir sie zurückhalten oder begraben.« Als Einführung in Kafkas »ungeheure Welt« sind die Erzählungen aus dem Sammelband ›Ein Landarzt‹ hervorragend geeignet. Sie bieten ein buntes Spektrum ›kafkaesker‹ Themen und Figuren, die den Leser sogleich hineinreißen in den faszinierend beunruhigenden Kosmos dieses großen Erzählers.

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Franz Kafka wurde am 3. Juli 1883 als Sohn jüdischer Eltern in Prag geboren. Nach einem Jurastudium, das er 1906 mit der Promotion abschloß, trat Kafka 1908 in die »Arbeiter-Unfall-Versicherungs-Anstalt« ein, deren Beamter er bis zu seiner frühzeitigen Pensionierung im Jahr 1922 blieb. Im Spätsommer 1917 erlitt Franz Kafka einen Blutsturz; es war der Ausbruch der Tuberkulose, an deren Folgen er am 3. Juni 1924, noch nicht 41 Jahre alt, starb.

Genres: Classics, Short Stories, German Literature

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1920

About the author

Franz Kafka was a German-speaking writer from Prague whose work became one of the foundations of modern literature, even though he published only a small part of his writing during his lifetime. Born into a middle-class Jewish family in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kafka grew up amid German, Czech, and Jewish cultural influences that shaped his sense of displacement and linguistic precision. His difficult relationship with his authoritarian father left a lasting mark, fostering feelings of guilt, anxiety, and inadequacy that became central themes in his fiction and personal writings.
Kafka studied law at the German University in Prague, earning a doctorate in 1906. He chose law for practical reasons rather than personal inclination, a compromise that troubled him throughout his life. After university, he worked for several insurance institutions, most notably the Workers Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. His duties included assessing industrial accidents and drafting legal reports, work he carried out competently and responsibly. Nevertheless, Kafka regarded his professional life as an obstacle to his true vocation, and most of his writing was done at night or during periods of illness and leave. Kafka began publishing short prose pieces in his early adulthood, later collected in volumes such as Contemplation and A Country Doctor. These works attracted little attention at the time but already displayed the hallmarks of his mature style, including precise language, emotional restraint, and the application of calm logic to deeply unsettling situations. His major novels The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika were left unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime. They depict protagonists trapped within opaque systems of authority, facing accusations, rules, or hierarchies that remain unexplained and unreachable. Themes of alienation, guilt, bureaucracy, law, and punishment run throughout Kafka’s work. His characters often respond to absurd or terrifying circumstances with obedience or resignation, reflecting his own conflicted relationship with authority and obligation. Kafka’s prose avoids overt symbolism, yet his narratives function as powerful metaphors through structure, repetition, and tone. Ordinary environments gradually become nightmarish without losing their internal coherence. Kafka’s personal life was marked by emotional conflict, chronic self-doubt, and recurring illness. He formed intense but troubled romantic relationships, including engagements that he repeatedly broke off, fearing that marriage would interfere with his writing. His extensive correspondence and diaries reveal a relentless self-critic, deeply concerned with morality, spirituality, and the demands of artistic integrity. In his later years, Kafka’s health deteriorated due to tuberculosis, forcing him to withdraw from work and spend long periods in sanatoriums. Despite his illness, he continued writing when possible. He died young, leaving behind a large body of unpublished manuscripts. Before his death, he instructed his close friend Max Brod to destroy all of his remaining work. Brod ignored this request and instead edited and published Kafka’s novels, stories, and diaries, ensuring his posthumous reputation.
The publication of Kafka’s work after his death established him as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. The term Kafkaesque entered common usage to describe situations marked by oppressive bureaucracy, absurd logic, and existential anxiety. His writing has been interpreted through existential, religious, psychological, and political perspectives, though Kafka himself resisted definitive meanings. His enduring power lies in his ability to articulate modern anxiety with clarity and restraint.

Reviews

[Emilka ;)]

necessary to read after „the trial” 🤩

[Yashal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I still did not understood what actually happened, it's maybe because I've not read "the trial" yet lol

[Mania · Rating 4 out of 5]

Świetnie opisane metaforami: tematyka śmiertelności oraz motyw oniryczny.

Ocena: 3,5

[Enrico Innamorato · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haha

[karolciax · Rating 3 out of 5]

dziwaczne

[Zuz · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 za podjebanie mi pomysłu, wstydź się Franz, chciałam coś podobnego napisać

[↟° IRIS ⇞↟⇞ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Singled out some of Kafka's sentences; it won't explain the work itself but I believe it will capture more of the quick Kafka spirit. Each line of this story drew me in to the murkiness of Kafka's graveyard. I enjoyed it, it was beautiful in its' very unique way.

✦"Joseph K. had dreamt:
It was a beautiful day and K. wanted to take a walk. But he'd only made two steps and found himself on the graveyard. The trails there were much artificially and impractically twisted, but he, in the stance of steadfast flying, slid on those trails like on top of a flash flood. Already from afar he noticed a freshly buried mound next to which he wished to stop. That mound almost felt as if it attracted him, he felt like he won't reach it soon enough. From time to time his gaze towards the mound was interrupted with flags whose linens fluttered and beat against each other with with great force; their ensigns escaped sight but it seemed like big festivities were at large."

[Anda Kruetani · Rating 3 out of 5]

A dive into human mortality and its perception.

[Ειρήνη Χατζουδη · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Μη στραφείτε εναντίον μου. Μόνο στα όνειρα είμαι τόσο αλλόκοτος". Αφηγηματολογικές κατασκευές με τη μορφή του ονείρου, που δείχνουν πόσο νωρίς έφυγε ο Κάφκα.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5⭐

[Nothing · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's 4 pages long in case u were wondering

[Katarina · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.9

[cici ✧.* · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5 this shit so good

daj mi malo toga na čemu si brate

kafka so real for this i ja imam šizofreniju

[Nagwa Nasr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enchanted by the sight, he woke up.

[Timo · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,31

[Min Chiu · Rating 4 out of 5]

reading this felt like those dreams where u plummet 300ft down some kind of infinite staircase without being able to hold onto anything other than your irrational fear of heights.

[Amelie ♜]

Reminds me of a dream I had last year

[Zynnlvvaa · Rating 5 out of 5]

woooow what the helly

[DD · Rating 4 out of 5]

[7]

[Nina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very short but powerful! Great epilogue for the Trial. Loved it!

[Dorotea · Rating 5 out of 5]

random josef k appearance i wasnt aware of. now i like him better

[Danilo Žeželj · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good

[⋆ miya ☽]

dog why would you dream that

[Moataz Mohamed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kafka's writings are from another realm, and that's that.
The Dream, a terrible dream, a strange dream, but still in the safety of a dream.