His inhibitions and insecurities plagued his relationships. But his personal life still raged with complications. Love and HealthĪt work Kafka was a popular employee, easy to socialize with and seen as somebody with a good sense of humor. Kafka remained with the company until 1917, when a bout with tuberculosis forced him to take a sick leave and to eventually retire in 1922. After turning in his resignation he quickly found a new job with the Workers' Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia.Īs much as any work could, the job and his employers suited Kafka, who worked hard and became his boss's right-hand man. He lasted at the agency a little less than a year.
It was a terrible fit from the start, with Kafka forced to work a tiring schedule that left little time for his writing. Work LifeĪfter completing his apprenticeship, Kafka found work with an Italian insurance agency in late 1907. In 1906 Kafka completed his law degree and embarked on a year of unpaid work as a law clerk. The change pleased his father, and also gave Kafka the time to take classes in art and literature. Still, even while Kafka earned the respect of his teachers, he chafed under their control and the school's control of his life.Īfter high school Kafka enrolled at the Charles Ferdinand University of Prague, where intended to study chemistry but after just two weeks switched to law. Kafka was a smart child who did well in school even at the Altstädter Staatsgymnasium, an exacting high school for the academic elite. In fact, despite his Czech background and Jewish roots, Kafka's identity favored German culture. For much of his adult life, he lived within close proximity to his parents. Kafka seems to have derived much of his value directly from to his family, in particular his father. In his literature, Kafka's characters were often coming up against an overbearing power of some kind, one that could easily break the will of men and destroy their sense of self-worth. Much of Kafka's personal struggles, in romance and other relationships, came, he believed, in part from his complicated relationship with his father. He was a tyrant of sorts, with a wicked temper and little appreciation for his son's creative side. Kafka's father had a profound impact on both Kafka's life and writing. He was a success in business, making his living retailing men's and women's clothes. Kafka's father, Hermann, had a forceful personality that often overwhelmed the Kafka home. His mother, Julie, was a devoted homemaker who lacked the intellectual depth to understand her son's dreams to become a writer. Kafka had a difficult relationship with both of his parents.
Franz's two younger brothers, Georg and Heinrich, died in infancy by the time Kafka was six, leaving the boy the only son in a family that included three daughters (all of whom would later die in Nazi death camps or a Polish ghetto).
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Writer Franz Kafka was the eldest son of an upper middle-class Jewish family who was born on July 3, 1883, in Prague, the capital of Bohemia, a kingdom that was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His friend Max Brod published most of his work posthumously, such as Amerika and The Castle. In 1923, he moved to Berlin to focus on writing, but died of tuberculosis shortly after. After studying law at the University of Prague, he worked in insurance and wrote in the evenings. Author Franz Kafka grew up in an upper middle-class Jewish family.
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