Rare Book of the Day – The Diaries of Franz Kafka, First Edition.
Diaries: 1910-13 and 1914-23, Franz Kafka. First Edition.
Franz Kafka (1883-1924) is a towering figure in twentieth century literature. Born in Prague, he worked at various insurance agencies in his adult life, while dedicating the majority of his free time to writing. He was a tortured, distressed soul, despairing over his perceived isolation from the human community – women, friends, the jobs he detested, society and God. This shows in his writing, with recurring themes including alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity. Kafka was not particularly fond of his writing, reluctantly publishing a few writings during his lifetime, as he became increasingly sought out by avant-garde publishers. In fact, upon his death he wrote to his friend and literary executor Max Brod to destroy his manuscripts, writing: "Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me ... in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others'), sketches, and so on, [is] to be burned unread." Thankfully, Brod did not fulfill this request and published his novels and collected works between 1925 and 1935.
Kafka's Diaries were written between 1910 and 1923, the year before his death. They include casual observations, philosophical reflections, accounts of dreams and literary brainstorming, providing a penetrating look into the mind of a tortured artistic genius. From the New Yorker's review: "“It is likely that these journals will be regarded as one of [Kafka’s] major literary works; his life and personality were perfectly suited to the diary form, and in these pages he reveals what he customarily hid from the world.” This is the first English-Language Edition, complete in two volumes:
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It's funny, we Czechs have many great writers, but all those foreign folks are only interested in Kafka. It's always Kafka this and Kafka that.
Hello @angry0historian,
It would be a pleasure for me if you told me a Czech writer who you like and you think are more good then Kafka. I have read one book of Radek John "Memento" and really want to know more quality writers from there :)
That depends on which genre you are interested. Czech writers cover a large amount of different genres.
The number one best writer is considered to be Karel Čapek ( Č is pronounced the same way like CZ). He covered a wide variety of topics. For me personaly the best thing he wrote is the theatre play R.U.R. ( Rossum's Universal Robots), which later inspired Isaac Asimov's stories.
Czechs are also famous for their, often dark, humor. One of the best best examples is Jaroslav Hašek and his novel The Good Soldier Švejk. Imagine that you live in a world after the First World War. Many have died, the guys like Hemingway and Remarque are writing, how the war was a hell. And then some dude from Czechoslowakia releases his novel about the Great War, but it isn't the same brooding and dark stuff like the writers before. On the contrary he made fun of the war and the whole fighting. No wonder this novel holds a record as The Most translated Novel of Czech Literature. Bonus points if you manage do get the version illustrated by Josef Lada, but that could cost you a pretty penny.
There is a lot of other great writers, but I think that this is enough for now. Our culture has a lot to give to other countries, but we sadly weren't able to "market" it like for example Japanese.
By the way nice choice for the profile picture. A Trip to the Moon by Georges Méliès from 1902.
Oh, of course Čapek and Hašek were Czech writers... For Hašek I think more like writer without nationality, because he have overstepped it and write worldwide literature for me.... Kafka for me is more individual, so if you read him you think about the environment in which he grew up. He reminds me of Gogol and his strange Petersburg's stories - he has the originality of the imagination that can only be born in some specific area, this is my explanation why the people associates only Kafka with the Czech Republic.
For a long time, I wish to read this play from Chapek, it is like an archetype in this genre, and after it, nothing new is invented.
Thank you @angry0historian for the answer. I read everything, but if you know some other Czech writer with dark humor it will be great :)
These are definitely on my to-collect list.