Frederick Robert Karl Boeken

With wide format pages to give generous margins for notes, the editor presents the latest Conrad scholarship in an introduction, and also includes notes, selected criticism and a chronology of the author's life and times.

From the cauldron of fin-de-siècle Middle Europe emerged a writer who embodies the artistic vision of the century—Franz Kafka. This definitive critical biography examines Kafka as the quintessential expression of modernism, presenting a vivid picture of the historical, cultural, and artistic world from which he arose. It explores his entire body of work in light of his status as the representative man of our time. The study includes influential figures such as Freud, Nietzsche, Einstein, Picasso, Rilke, Mahler, and Stravinsky, all part of the radically subversive modernist movement. Yet, it is Kafka who has come to symbolize the essence of the century. Informed by a lifetime of thought and research, and drawing on newly discovered letters to his parents, the biographer leads us through the labyrinth of Prague, amidst growing ethnic tensions that would later explode in World War II, in an empire grappling with its national identity. With remarkable command and insight, the author interweaves the many strands of person, place, and time to illuminate Kafka as an individual, artist, and representative man. This work is an invaluable contribution to literary studies and the history of modern culture.