A scrum of Israeli lawyers and Swiss bank clerks crowded a Zurich bank vault recently, after a Tel Aviv family court ordered the opening of four safe deposit boxes belonging to the heirs of Max Brod’s secretary containing manuscripts by Franz Kafka. A similar crowd had already visited safe deposit boxes in a Tel Aviv…
A recent study published in Psychological Science claims that absurdist literature stimulates the mind, heightening its capacity and potential, both at the time of reading — and afterwards. To prove this, 40 people participated in an experiment where they read Kafka’s “Country Doctor” and were observed by scientists Travis Proulx and Steven J. Heine. The…
The Zürau Aphorisms of Franz Kafka By Franz Kafka, with commentary by Roberto Calasso Translated by Michael Hofmann Schocken Books, 160 pages, $15.95. In the summer of 1917, Franz Kafka suffered the first symptoms of tuberculosis. Paradoxically enough, the onset of the disease liberated him. It freed him from his agonized and agonizing engagement to…
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