Kafka: The Decisive Years
Reiner Stach, Author, Shelley Frisch, Translator , trans. from the German by Shelley Frisch. Harcourt $35 (581p) ISBN 978-0-15-100752-3
We know Kafka better than almost any other literary figure. His tormented psyche has been on view for decades, not only from his great stories and novels but also from countless letters and diary entries, his own as well as those of lovers, and his friend and editor, Max Brod. Oddly, he has not commanded a great biography. German editor and author Stach enters the breach with the first volume of a planned trilogy, now published in an excellent English translation. Stach begins with a superb meditation on the art of biography, including the pitfalls of the empathy a biographer establishes with his subject. He picks up Kafka's life not in childhood, but in 1910, the fitful beginning of his literary career, and follows it only until 1915. But these were the years when Kafka produced some of his greatest works, including "The Metamorphosis" and
Reviewed on: 09/12/2005
Release date: 11/01/2005
Genre: Nonfiction
Hardcover - 581 pages - 9780151007523
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Open Ebook - 584 pages - 9781400884476
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