(3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-language writer of novels and short stories, regarded by critics as one of the most influential authors of the 20th century. Kafka heavily influenced genres like existentialism. His works, such as "Die Verwandlung" ("The Metamorphosis"), Der Process (The Trial), and Das Schloss (The Castle), are filled with the themes and archetypes of alienation, physical and psychological brutality, parent–child conflict, characters on a terrifying quest, and mystical transformations.
Kafka was born into a middle-class, German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and trained as a lawyer. After completing his legal education, Kafka obtained employment with an insurance company. He began to write short stories in his spare time, and for the rest of his life complained about the little time he had to devote to what he came to regard as his calling. He also regretted having to devote so much attention to his Brotberuf ("day job", literally "bread job"). Kafka preferred to communicate by letter; he wrote hundreds of letters to family and close female friends, including his father, his fiancée Felice Bauer, and his youngest sister Ottla.
He had a complicated and troubled relationship with his father that had a major impact on his writing, and he was conflicted over his Jewishness and felt it had little to do with him, although it debatably influenced his writing.
Only a few of Kafka's works were published during his lifetime: the story collections Betrachtung (Contemplation) and Ein Landarzt (A Country Doctor), and individual stories (such as "Die Verwandlung") in literary magazines. He prepared the story collection Ein Hungerkünstler (A Hunger Artist) for print, but it was not published until after his death. Kafka's unfinished works, including his novels Der Process, Das Schloss and Amerika (also known as Der Verschollene, The Man Who Disappeared), were published posthumously, mostly by his friend Max Brod, who ignored Kafka's wish to have the manuscripts destroyed. Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre are among the writers influenced by Kafka's work; the term Kafkaesque has entered the English language to describe surreal situations like those in his writing.

Kafka was born near the Old Town Square in Prague, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His family's social and ethnic background was of middle-class Ashkenazi Jews.
His father, Hermann Kafka (1852–1931), was the fourth child of Jakob Kafka, a shochet or ritual slaughterer in Osek, a Czech village with a large Jewish population located near Strakonice in southern Bohemia.[3] It was Hermann who brought the Kafka family to Prague. After working as a traveling sales representative, he eventually became a fancy goods and clothing retailer who employed up to 15 people and used the image of a jackdaw (kavka in Czech) as his business logo.[4] Kafka's mother, Julie (1856–1934), was the daughter of Jakob Löwy, a prosperous retail merchant in Poděbrady,[5] and was better educated than her husband.[1] Kafka's parents probably spoke a Yiddish-influenced variety of German, sometimes pejoratively called Mauscheldeutsch, but because the German language was considered the vehicle of social mobility, they probably encouraged their children to speak High German.[6] Hermann and Julie had six children, of which Franz was the eldest.[7]
Franz's two brothers, Georg and Heinrich, died in infancy before Franz was seven; his three sisters were Gabriele ("Ellie") (1889–1944), Valerie ("Valli") (1890–1942) and Ottilie ("Ottla") (1892–1943).
Hermann is described by biographer Stanley Corngold as a "huge, selfish, overbearing businessman"[8] and by Franz Kafka as "a true Kafka in strength, health, appetite, loudness of voice, eloquence, self-satisfaction, worldly dominance, endurance, presence of mind, [and] knowledge of human nature".[9]
On business days, both parents were absent from the home with Julie Kafka working as many as 12 hours each day helping to manage the family business.
Consequently, Kafka's childhood was somewhat lonely,[10] and the children were largely reared by a series of governesses and servants.
Kafka's troubled relationship with his father is evident in his Brief an den Vater (Letter to His Father) of more than 100 pages, in which he complains of being profoundly affected by his father's authoritarian and demanding character;[11] his mother, in contrast, was quiet and shy.[12] The dominating figure of Kafka's father had a significant impact on Kafka's writing.[13]
The Kafka family had a servant girl living with them in a cramped apartment. Franz's room was often cold. In November 1913 the family moved into a bigger apartment even though Ellie and Vallie had married and moved out of the first apartment. In early August 1914, just after World War I began, the sisters did not know where their husbands were and moved back in with the family into this larger apartment. Both Ellie and Valli now had children. Franz, now age 31, moved into Valli's quiet apartment and lived by himself for the first time.[14]

From 1889 to 1893, Kafka attended the Deutsche Knabenschule (German boys' elementary school) at the Masný trh/Fleischmarkt (meat market), now known as Masná Street. His Jewish education ended with his Bar Mitzvah celebration at the age of 13. Kafka never enjoyed attending the synagogue and only went with his father on four holidays a year.
After leaving elementary school in 1893, Kafka was admitted to the rigorous classics-oriented state gymnasium, Altstädter Deutsches Gymnasium, an academic secondary school at Old Town Square, within the Kinsky Palace. German was the language of instruction, but Kafka also spoke and wrote in Czech; he studied the latter at the gymnasium for eight years, achieving good grades.[19] He received compliments for his Czech, but never considered himself fluent.[20] He completed his Matura exams in 1901.[21]
Admitted to the German Karl-Ferdinands-Universität of Prague in 1901, Kafka began studying chemistry, but switched to law after two weeks.[22] Although this field did not excite him, it offered a range of career possibilities which pleased his father. In addition, law required a longer course of study, giving Kafka time to take classes in German studies and art history.[23] He also joined a student club, Lese-und Redehalle der Deutschen Studenten (Reading and Lecture Hall of the German students), which organized literary events, readings and other activities.[24] Among Kafka's friends were the journalist Felix Weltsch, who studied philosophy, the actor Yitzchak Lowy who came from an orthodox Hasidic Warsaw family, and the writers Oskar Baum and Franz Werfel.[25]
At the end of his first year of studies, Kafka met Max Brod, a fellow law student, who became a close friend for life.[24] Brod soon noticed that, although Kafka was shy and seldom spoke, what he said was usually profound.[26] Kafka was an avid reader throughout his life;[27] with Brod, he read Plato's Protagoras in the original Greek, on Brod's initiative, and Flaubert's L'éducation sentimentale (Sentimental Education) and La Temptation de St. Anthoine (The Temptation of Saint Anthony) in French, at Kafka's suggestion.[28] Kafka considered Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Franz Grillparzer,[29] and Heinrich von Kleist to be his "true blood brothers".[30] Besides these, he took an interest in Czech literature[17][18] and was also very fond of the works of Goethe.[31][32] Kafka obtained the degree of Doctor of Law on 18 July 1906[b] and performed an obligatory year of unpaid service as law clerk for the civil and criminal courts.[35]
Kafka was diagnosed with tuberculosis in August 1917 and moved for a few months to the Bohemian village of Zürau, where his sister Ottla worked on the farm of her brother-in-law Hermann. He felt comfortable there and later described this time as perhaps the best in his life, probably because he had no responsibilities. He kept diaries and Oktavhefte (octavo). From the notes in these books Kafka extracted 109 numbered pieces of text on Zettel, single pieces of paper in no given order. They were later published as Die Zürauer Aphorismen oder Betrachtungen über Sünde,
Pérez-Álvarez has claimed that Kafka may have possessed a schizoid personality disorder.[84] His style, they claim, not only in "Die Verwandlung" ("The Metamorphosis"), but in various other writings, appears to show low to medium-level schizoid characteristics, which explain much of his surprising work.[85] His anguish can be seen in this diary entry from 21 June 1913:[86]
The tremendous world I have in my head. But how to free myself and free them without ripping apart. And a thousand times rather tear in me they hold back or buried. For this I'm here, that's quite clear to me.[87]
Though Kafka never married, he held marriage and children in high esteem. He had several girlfriends,[89] but some academics have speculated over his sexuality; others have suggested he may have suffered from an eating disorder. Doctor Manfred M. Fichter of the Psychiatric Clinic, University of Munich presented "evidence for the hypothesis that the writer Franz Kafka had suffered from an atypical anorexia nervosa"[90] and that Kafka was not just lonely and depressed but also "occasionally suicidal"

فرانز كافكا
(بالألمانية: Franz Kafka) (3 يوليو 1883 - 3 يونيو 1924) كاتب تشيكي يهودي كتب بالألمانية، رائد الكتابة الكابوسية. يعد أحد أفضل أدباء الألمان في فن الرواية والقصة القصيرة.
تعلم كافكا الكيمياءوالحقوق والادب في الجامعة الألمانية في براغ (1901). ولد لعائلة يهودية متحررة، وخلال حياته تقرب من اليهودية. تعلم العبرية لدى معلمة خصوصية. عمل موظفا في شركة تأمين حوادث العمل. امضى وقت فراغه في الكتابة الادبية التي راى بها هدف وجوهر حياته. القليل من كتاباته نشرت خلال حياته، معظمها - يشمل رواياته العظمى (الحكم) و(الغائب) التي لم ينهها- نشرت بعد موته، على يد صديقه المقرب ماكس برود، الذي لم يستجب لطلب كافكا بإبادة كل كتاباته.
حياته كانت مليئة بالحزن والمعاناة، بما في ذلك علاقته بوالده.
فكافكا كان مثقفا حساسا وقع تحت حكم والد مستبد وقوي، عنه، هكذا قال، كتبت كل إنتاجاته. فكتب رسالته الطويلة تحت عنوان (رسالة لأب). الامر يبرز بصورة خاصة في كتابه (الحكم) حيث يقبل الشاب حكم الموت الذي اصدره عليه والده ويغرق.
كان كافكا نباتيا واشمأز من أكل اللحوم، وهنالك من يربطون هذا بمهنة جده الذي كان جزارا. عرف كافكا على انه شخص يصعب عليه اتمام الامور، وهو الامر الذي ميز كتابته حيث كان يجد صعوبة في انهاء إنتاجاته.

توفي فرانز كافكا بمرض السل في 3 يونيو 1924 عن عمر يناهز ال 41، بعد عام على ايجاده الحب الكبير لحياته، المهاجرة اليهودية دورا ديامنط. ,, وتوفي بمدينة بالقرب من فينا

جدير بالذكر كذلك أن كتابات كافكا قد تعرضت فيما بعد للحرق على يد هتلر، وتعرضت مؤلفات كافكا لموقفين متناقضين من الدول الشيوعية في القرن الماضي، بدأت بالمنع والمصادرة وانتهت بالترحيب والدعم.