Curriculum Vitae
Franz Kafka
1883 - Franz Kafka was born in Prague on 3 July.
1889–1893 - Primary school on the Fleischmarktgasse (Meat Market Street). Sisters, Gabrielle, called
Elli (1889); Valerie, called Valli (1890); and Ottilie, called Ottla (1892); were born during this period.
1893–1900 - Studies at the Altstädter German Institute. First friends are: Oskar Pollak and Rudolf
Illový. The Kafka family lives on the Zeltnergasse (Zeltner Street).
1901–1902 - Higher education at the German University of Prague; first, chemistry; in the summer,
German studies, then law. Spends the summer holidays at Liboch, near Prague, and travels to
Munich. First meetings with Max Brod. Correspondence with Oskar Pollak; Kafka writes to him on 20
December: “Prague doesn’t let go. Of either of us. This old crone has claws. One has to yield, or else.”
Kafka, at the age of nineteen, is expressing the tension he feels between the place in which he has to
live and his desire to overcome its limits. In this respect, his writing is a kind of journey that is captive,
to a liberation that he would have be total and knows to be impossible.
1903 - Up until this year, has destroyed his first exercises in style. Reads Nietzsche. July: state exams
in history of law. Writes to Pollak on 9 November: “Today is Sunday, when the clerks always come
down Wenzelsplatz across the Graben, and clamor for Sunday quiet... The others, however, who walk
on the Graben smiling because they do not know how to use even their Sunday—I’d slap their faces if
I had the courage and didn’t smile myself.” The letter ends with evocative lines on the Charles Bridge
and the churches that point in the Prague sky: “People who dark bridges cross, / passing saints / with
feeble candles. / Clouds that parade across gray skies, / passing churches / with darkening towers. /
One who leans on the squared stone railing, / looking into the evening waters, / hands resting upon
ancient stone.”
1904 - Autumn / winter: probably, the first draft of “Description of a Struggle” (“Beschreibung eines
Kampfes”).
1905 - In the month of August, he travels to Zuckmantel, Silesia, to stay at a sanatorium; relationship
with a woman older than himself.
1906 - Obtains his doctorate in law. In October, begins the year of legal work necessary to exercise
the profession.
1907 - Writes “Wedding Preparations in the Country” (“Hochzeitsvorbereitungen auf dem Lande”). The
family moves to Niklastrasse (Nicholas Street). In October, he starts work at the Prague office of the
Assicurazioni Generali, a company headquartered in the Italian city of Trieste, then Austrian.
1908 - The first prose pieces appear, eight fragments, in the magazine Hyperion. Beginning in July of
this year until July 1922, works at the Arbeiterunfall und Versicherungsanstalt (Workers’ Accident
Insurance Institute).
1909 - “Conversation with the Supplicant” and “Conversation with the Drunk” are published in
Hyperion. Spends his holidays in Riva (on Lake Garda) with Max and Otto Brod. On 29 September,
the Prague daily Bohemia publishes the tale “The Airplanes at Brescia” (“Die Aeroplane in Brescia”).
He started to write a diary.
1910 - In the Easter supplement of Bohemia, five prose pieces appear under the title “Reflections”
(“Betrachtungen”). Starts writing the Diaries. He attends Yiddish theater performances. In the middle
of October, travels to Paris with Max and Otto Brod; Kafka falls ill and returns alone to Prague. In early
December, travels to Berlin.
1911 - Spends his holidays by the lakes in northern Italy with Max Brod. Spends a period at the
Erlenbach sanatorium. His interest in Yiddish theater grows and he makes friends with Jizchak Löwy.
(Kafka is attracted by the vitality of this theater of Eastern European origins, which contrasts, perhaps,
with the rigor of the performances in Prague by German theater companies.) The Diaries are already
voluminous. On 9 October he writes: “If I reach my fortieth year, then I’ll probably marry an old maid
with protruding upper teeth left a little exposed by the upper lip.” (Kafka died a month short of his fortyfirst birthday.) In February, writes The Urban World (Die städtische Welt), an extraordinary dream.
From 26 August to 12 September, with Max Brod, passes through Munich on his way to Zurich,
Lucerne, Lugano, Milan, and Lake Maggiore. From Italy they go on to Paris, where Kafka writes some
notes as an exceptional observer, and then return to Milan, where they see plays at the Fossati
Theater. In Paris, they have seen Racine’s Phaedra and Bizet’s Carmen.
1912 - A decisive year for the writer. During the first months he starts The Man Who Disappeared
(“Der Verschollene”), which will later be given the title America by Max Brod). Spends July in Weimar
with Max Brod. Is introduced to Felice Bauer, with whom in October will begin a copious
correspondence. From November to December, tireless and insomniac, writes “Die Verwandlung”
(literally, “the transformation,” but known generally as “The Metamorphosis”). By January 1913, has
written seven chapters of The Man Who Disappeared, the original title of the novel, which for a long
time was published inder the title of America. In December, gives a public reading of “The Judgment”
(“Das Urteil”). The number of pages in the Diaries decreases while the letters to Felice abound.
1913 - In Leipzig, Rowohlt publishes Meditation (Betrachtung), which has been in circulation since
November 1912. In January, Kafka travels to Berlin to meet Felice Bauer’s family. In May, makes a
second trip to Berlin. In September, travels to Vienna, Venice, and Riva.
1914 - In June, becomes engaged to Felice Bauer. In July, breaks off the engagement. Travels to the
Baltic. In August, moves to his own rented lodgings on Bilekgasse street. Begins writing The Trial (Der
Prozess). Elias Canetti, in his 1969 essay Kafka’s Other Trial (Der andere Prozess Kafkas), makes a
connection between the “trial” of Kafka’s engagement and breakup with Felice and its transformation
into the novel The Trial. (Klaus Wagenbach also points this out in his magnificent Kafka, of 1964.)
Meets Felice’s friend Grete Bloch. October: writes “In the Penal Colony” (“In der Strafkolonie”).
1915 - In January, goes to see Felice Bauer. In March, moves to his own apartment on Lange Gasse
(Long Street). (Kafka almost always lived with his parents, except for some periods such as those
noted and his final days in Berlin.) The expressionist playwright Carl Sternheim presents the Fontane
prize money to Kafka. November: in Leipzig, Rohwohlt publishes “The Metamorphosis” (“Die
Verwandlung”). “The Metamorphosis” is displayed in bookshops, along with “The Judgment.”
1916 - In July, goes to Marienbad with Felice. Writes short stories for A Country Doctor (Ein Landarzt).
In Munich, gives a reading of “In the Penal Colony.”
1917 - In the evening and at nights, he worked on Alchemists Street, then takes a room in the
Schönborn Palace. In July, becomes engaged to Felice for the second time. On 4 September, is
diagnosed with tuberculosis. Takes a leave from work and spends time in Zürau with Ottla. Writes
“Aphorisms.” In December, in Prague, breaks off his engagement with Felice for the second time.
1918 - First, to Zürau, where he studies Kierkegaard; in the summer, to Prague. In September, to
Turnau; in November, to Schelesen. Relationship with Julie Wohryzek, from a modest family, greatly
displeases Kafka’s father.
1919 - A Country Doctor and “In the Penal Colony” are published. Spends the summer in Prague.
Becomes engaged to Julie Wohryzek. Spends the winter with Max Brod in Schelesen. Writes “Letter
to his Father” (“Brief an den Vater”), a document as hurtful as a shot to the hierarchical heart of the
family, but prevented from reaching its intended recipient by his mother.
1920 - Sick leave in Merano. Correspondence with Milena Jesenská. Summer and autumn, office
work in Prague. Breaks up with Julie Wohryzek. Goes to Matliare, in the Tatra Mountains, for the
following months. Strikes up a friendship with a doctor, Robert Klopstock.
1921 -In the Tatra Mountains (Matliare) until September; in Prague for the rest of the year.
1922 - January and February in Spindelmühle; returns to Prague. Reads pages from The Castle (Das
Schloss), which he works on from January to September. In the spring, writes “A Hunger Artist” (“Ein
Hungerkünstler”) and in the summer, “Investigations of a Dog” (“Forschungen eines Hundes”). Spends
June to September in Planá with Ottla, then Prague.
1923 - Spends July in Müritz, on the Baltic Sea. Meets Dora Dymant. Goes to stay with Ottla at
Schelesen. From September to March, lives in Berlin with Dymant, a Zionist who revives in Kafka the
desire to go and settle in Palestine. Writes some of the narratives that, together with those of the
previous year, epitomize the purest traits of his production: “A Little Woman” (“Eine kleine Frau”) and
“The Burrow” (“Der Bau”).
1924 - Berlin. In March, leaves for Prague. Writes “Josephine, the Singer, or the Mouse Folk.” Kafka
can neither talk nor swallow his food. Leaves Prague at the beginning of April. Goes to the Kierling
Sanatorium, with Robert Klopstock and Dora Dymant; dies there on 3 June, while Dymant has gone
out for a moment to fetch flowers for him. The writer is buried on 11 June in Prague. “A Hunger Artist”
is published that summer.
Lluís Izquierdo is a Lecturer in literature at Barcelona University and a writer. He is the author, among
other books, of Kafka y su obra (1983), Seńales de nieve (1995), and Sesión continua (1998).