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Az én cellám - az én váram
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Phantastisches und Unheimliches, Paradoxes und Kafka beschreibt die unglaublichsten Sachverhalte nüchtern und minutiös. Grenzbereiche werden ausgeleuchtet, existenzielle Grund- oder Ausnahmesituationen in unvergessliche Bilder gefasst. Seine Texte haben die gleiche Intensität wie Träume. »Es ist das Schicksal und vielleicht auch die Größe dieses Werks, dass es alle Möglichkeiten darbietet und keine bestätigt« (Albert Camus).
Mit dem Autorenporträt aus dem Metzler Lexikon Weltliteratur.
Mit Daten zu Leben und Werk, exklusiv verfasst von der Redaktion der Zeitschrift für Literatur TEXT + KRITIK.
Phantastisches und Unheimliches, Paradoxes und Kafka beschreibt die unglaublichsten Sachverhalte nüchtern und minutiös. Grenzbereiche werden ausgeleuchtet, existenzielle Grund- oder Ausnahmesituationen in unvergessliche Bilder gefasst. Seine Texte haben die gleiche Intensität wie Träume. »Es ist das Schicksal und vielleicht auch die Größe dieses Werks, dass es alle Möglichkeiten darbietet und keine bestätigt« (Albert Camus).
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1919
3 people are currently reading
100 people want to read
About the author
Franz Kafka
3,232 books38.6k followersFranz 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
September 18, 2018
Franz Kafka's Up In The Gallery is a short prose-piece. It consists of only two sentences. Ignoring the several (all equally convincing) claims to have found a 'code' for Kafka's writing; to therefore read Up In The Gallery 'plain' --
Aside from the interest in the content of Up In The Gallery (does the narrator 'see clear'?) some of us simply enjoy its language structure. Some of us probably will have no recollection at all of what it is about, for the thing that sank in was its shape.
Two clearly written sentences, each one setting out a series of highly imaginative images, clause following clause, and the second sentence before it launches off, succinctly placing its relationship to the first. The first sentence is what 'might have been' the case: the second sentence however is what actually 'is' the case.
'If some ( - ) were to ( - ), and if this ( - ) amid the ( - ) were to ( - ), perhaps then . . . ' This long structure alone, devoid of its content, can please. To then fill in the gaps with some vivid images - a tubercular lady circus-rider galloping round the ring for months and months without interruption, applause which dies down and rises up again, hands which clap like steam hammers - will do quite nicely.
And then a long second sentence begins with a rebuttal of the first one - 'Since things are not like that' - and a common writing 'shape' is stretched-out and attention is drawn to it (as a film director sometimes suddenly shows the cameras working on the set), and some of us are very pleased that Up In The Gallery exists. (https://markeldersonbooks.blogspot.com)
Aside from the interest in the content of Up In The Gallery (does the narrator 'see clear'?) some of us simply enjoy its language structure. Some of us probably will have no recollection at all of what it is about, for the thing that sank in was its shape.
Two clearly written sentences, each one setting out a series of highly imaginative images, clause following clause, and the second sentence before it launches off, succinctly placing its relationship to the first. The first sentence is what 'might have been' the case: the second sentence however is what actually 'is' the case.
'If some ( - ) were to ( - ), and if this ( - ) amid the ( - ) were to ( - ), perhaps then . . . ' This long structure alone, devoid of its content, can please. To then fill in the gaps with some vivid images - a tubercular lady circus-rider galloping round the ring for months and months without interruption, applause which dies down and rises up again, hands which clap like steam hammers - will do quite nicely.
And then a long second sentence begins with a rebuttal of the first one - 'Since things are not like that' - and a common writing 'shape' is stretched-out and attention is drawn to it (as a film director sometimes suddenly shows the cameras working on the set), and some of us are very pleased that Up In The Gallery exists. (https://markeldersonbooks.blogspot.com)
September 24, 2015
Kafka has a very interesting writing style; Love it!
June 2, 2023
Read it backwards...
July 6, 2025
3.75🌟
Kilkaset słów z głębokim przekazem.
Kilkaset słów z głębokim przekazem.
Read
August 27, 2024im on the kafka grind rn
March 27, 2023
3.5
A whole life in two sentences
A whole life in two sentences
August 3, 2019
En este relato se destaca la importancia de la forma de la narración y su exquisitez por sobre el tema narrado. La fluidez entre cada oración hace posible una lectura ininterrumpida y veloz. Como es típico de Kafka, cuenta con una frase final que da un cierre y deja al lector pensando
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 8, 2018
Ich möchte die Person sehen/hören, die das in doppelter Lesegeschwindigkeit ohne Fehler und Pausen vorliest, ohne zu explodieren.
December 12, 2021
Beautiful writing that conveyed so many ideas and emotions in just two sentences.
Key ideas:
- When cruelty is obviously seen and manifested, change can happen.
- But when cruelty is shielded in a form of compassion, no one can step forward.
- Everyone in the circus is complicit in watching these acts unfold, while not doing anything to change it
Key ideas:
- When cruelty is obviously seen and manifested, change can happen.
- But when cruelty is shielded in a form of compassion, no one can step forward.
- Everyone in the circus is complicit in watching these acts unfold, while not doing anything to change it
October 22, 2023
In this story, first it was written as what if the negative situation happens, then it breaks the imagination and what if things... And it's a positive situation...
It takes some time to understand the stuff..
It takes some time to understand the stuff..
August 27, 2025
RACCONTO BREVE (Su nella galleria)
Lo stile di questo brevissimo racconto è veramente interessante e suggestivo, ma l'opera è fin troppo allegorica per essere capita davvero, l'ho trovata un po' vuota.
6.5/10
Lo stile di questo brevissimo racconto è veramente interessante e suggestivo, ma l'opera è fin troppo allegorica per essere capita davvero, l'ho trovata un po' vuota.
6.5/10
January 22, 2018
Um, whut??? This reminds me of the type of dreams I usually have, random and bizarre.
March 13, 2022
Masterfully, two sentences pose: the delirium of acting against injustice vs. the saddening reality of inaction.
June 9, 2022
Beautiful story, poem maybe, on being and appearance. Reminder of the many deaths we live through in the darknesses of the world today.
February 12, 2023
4.25⭐
June 17, 2023
mam wrazenie ze to powinno byc w “ameryce”
September 22, 2023
I did not like this one very much. It seems like Kafka had looked at women in a certain way, somewhat alienated from them, if I may dare to notice.
Read
April 17, 2024Idk if it was any good cause i couldn't stand the narrator
December 23, 2025
A Kafka le encanta dejar de pensar con su última frase.
Corto, conciso y absolutamente rápido de leer.
Corto, conciso y absolutamente rápido de leer.
December 29, 2025
Kafka siempre tiene algo que decir. Lo amo.
March 7, 2021
Read for school
January 10, 2020
If Mattina by Ungaretti is the shortest poem I know, these two sentences by Kafka are probably the shortest book. Nevertheless, it took me a while to read and re-read the text to understand the words and try to identify its meaning. A first sentence that leads to a reaction starting from a untrue premise. A truth that requires different actions.
A few lines, which make you think. Kafka.
A few lines, which make you think. Kafka.
December 23, 2023
This is another Kafka text I read for class, first in German and then in English to clear up some less-common vocabulary (scrupulous, an idiomatic term for tuberculosis, steam-hammers, etc.)
Like Vor dem Gesetz, this one has a lot going on under the surface despite, but there's also a lot that's interesting at face value. For one, this is two run-on sentences, giving the whole thing a suffocating stream-of-consciousness feel, and then Kafka's imagery is as stark as one may expect. But upon analysis it's a reflection pool, a gestalt; undercurrents of metacommentary on literature as well as societal critique lend themselves well to many analytical lenses. There's a strange twist of humor underneath it all, as I've come to find out is common in Kafka's work. It still feels strange that he and his friends would sit around cracking up at such startling and indirect satire.
(Yes, I'm logging all my recent short fiction reads in an attempt to reach my Goodreads challenge before the year ends.)
Like Vor dem Gesetz, this one has a lot going on under the surface despite, but there's also a lot that's interesting at face value. For one, this is two run-on sentences, giving the whole thing a suffocating stream-of-consciousness feel, and then Kafka's imagery is as stark as one may expect. But upon analysis it's a reflection pool, a gestalt; undercurrents of metacommentary on literature as well as societal critique lend themselves well to many analytical lenses. There's a strange twist of humor underneath it all, as I've come to find out is common in Kafka's work. It still feels strange that he and his friends would sit around cracking up at such startling and indirect satire.
(Yes, I'm logging all my recent short fiction reads in an attempt to reach my Goodreads challenge before the year ends.)
May 19, 2016
Another Surreal short story. Performers or artists beleaguered unto sickness by the demands of their audience. Much like his "Hunger Artist".
February 19, 2017
Ein Kafka für unterwegs. Ein guter kurzer gedanklicher Einschnitt in den Alltag.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews