Everybody know the face of Franz Kafka, whether they have read any of his works or not. And that brooding face carries instant images; bleak and threatening visions of an inescapable bureaucracy, nightmarish transformations, uncanny predictions of the Holocaust. But while Kafka's genius is beyond question, the image of a mysterious, sickly, shadowy figure who was scarcely know in his own lifetime bears no resemblance to the historical reality.

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