Today marks the 130th birthday of famed writer,Franz Kafka, whom you may have read in school. He is best known for his surreal novel, THE METAMORPHOSIS, about a man who wakes up one day to find that he has transformed into a giant insect.
Hungary-born Kafka wrote his pieces in German, but only a couple were published during his lifetime. In fact, when he died, he specifically requested that all his writing be destroyed and never published! However, his best friend,Max Brod, thought Kafka was doing the world an injustice by keeping his brilliant work a secret, so the friend went against Kafka’s wishes and published his stories!
The result of that bold act was that Kafka became one of the most respected and influential writers in history. His existentialist works and the surreal situations present in them have led to the creation of the term”Kafkaesque” which is used to describe dreamlike situations similar to those found in Kafka’s works.