Franz Kafka and his Prague Contexts: Studies on Language and Literature

by Marek Nekula

Franz Kafka is by far the Prague author most widely read and admired internationally. However, his reception in Czechoslovakia, launched by the Liblice conference in 1963, has been conflicted. While rescuing Kafka from years of censorship and neglect, Czech critics of the 1960s “overwrote” his German and Jewish literary and cultural contexts in order to focus on his Czech cultural connections.
Seeking to rediscover Kafka’s multiple backgrounds, in Franz Kafka and His Prague Contexts Marek Nekula focuses on Kafka’s Jewish social and literary networks in Prague, his German and Czech bilingualism, and his knowledge of Yiddish and Hebrew. Kafka’s bilingualism is discussed in the context of contemporary essentialist views of a writer’s “organic” language and identity. Nekula also pays particular attention to Kafka’s education, examining his studies of Czech language and literature as well as its role in his intellectual life.
The book concludes by asking how Kafka “read” his urban environment, looking at the readings of Prague encoded in his fictional and non-fictional texts.

244 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2015

Reviews

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An well researched academic text exploring Kafka within the context of his life in Prague. The author marries every word written by Kafka including his work-related output to argue for Kafka's familiarity with the Czech language and culture whilst noting his pragmatic need to be schooled in German. Until 1918 German culture predominated and was the only way of social advancement in Prague. After this time Kafka had to change his work written practices to Czech as did many in Prague. Added to all was Kafka's desire to explore his Jewish heritage with efforts to learn Hebrew. The author researches his school reports and syllabi and the historical context of buildings, the counterculture arts movements of the day etc to piece together her argument for just how Czech Kafka was.

[Laïmée (Barbora Hunčovská) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kafka and languages - the best combination. Exciting, very well readable. Not only a language biography of Kafka but also an intriguing contribution to Czech-German language relations in Bohemia under late Habsburg rule. Besides the interpretations of Kafka's selected stories as expresions of the Czech-German linguistic strife in Bohemia are for me one of the most convincing so far. Enjoyed very much.