The Diaries of Franz Kafka: 1914-1923

by Franz Kafka

A partir de la figura de George Orwell, la gran pensadora de nuestro tiempo nos insta a la reflexión en un libro urgente, hermoso y esperanzador.

«En el año 1936, un escritor plantó unas rosas». Así comienza el nuevo libro de Rebecca Solnit, una reflexión sobre un jardinero apasionado que fue, además, la voz más importante del siglo XX frente a la mentira y el George Orwell. A partir de su inesperado encuentro con aquellas rosas que Orwell cultivó hace más de ochenta años y que siguen hoy rebosantes de vida en su jardín, la autora indaga en ese aspecto más desconocido de la vida del escritor para descubrir en qué medida su devoción por las flores puede iluminar sus compromisos éticos y estéticos como escritor y como luchador antifascista.

Con su característica capacidad para establecer conexiones inesperadas, Solnit entremezcla la vida y la obra literaria del autor de 1984 , y su vínculo con la naturaleza y el mundo de los sentidos, con otras historias como las de las rosas de la fotógrafa Tina Modotti, la obsesión de Stalin por hacer crecer limones en condiciones de frío extremas, la Guerra Civil española, la crítica de Jamaica Kincaid al colonialismo o la industria del cultivo de rosas en Colombia, y da pie a una reflexión sobre el placer, la belleza, el lenguaje, la escritura, la esperanza y la verdad como actos de resistencia.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction
Finalist for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography

“An exhilarating romp through Orwell’s life and times and also through the life and times of roses.” —Margaret Atwood

“A captivating account of Orwell as gardener, lover, parent, and endlessly curious thinker.” —Claire Messud, Harper's

“Nobody who reads it will ever think of Nineteen Eighty-Four in quite the same way.” — Vogue

A lush exploration of politics, roses, and pleasure, and a fresh take on George Orwell as an avid gardener whose political writing was grounded by his passion for the natural world

“In the spring of 1936, a writer planted roses.” So be-gins Rebecca Solnit’s new book, a reflection on George Orwell’s passionate gardening and the way that his involvement with plants, particularly flowers, illuminates his other commitments as a writer and antifascist, and on the intertwined politics of nature and power.

Sparked by her unexpected encounter with the roses he reportedly planted in 1936, Solnit’s account of this overlooked aspect of Orwell’s life journeys through his writing and his actions—from going deep into the coal mines of England, fighting in the Spanish Civil War, critiquing Stalin when much of the international left still supported him (and then critiquing that left) to his analysis of the relationship between lies and authoritarianism.

Through Solnit’s celebrated ability to draw unexpected connections, readers are drawn onward from Orwell‘s own work as a writer and gardener to encounter photographer Tina Modotti’s roses and her politics, agriculture and illusion in the USSR of his time with forcing lemons to grow in impossibly cold conditions, Orwell’s slave-owning ancestors in Jamaica, Jamaica Kincaid’s examination of colonialism and imperialism in the flower garden, and the brutal rose industry in Colombia that supplies the American market. The book draws to a close with a rereading of Nineteen Eighty-Four that completes Solnit’s portrait of a more hopeful Orwell, as well as offering a meditation on pleasure, beauty, and joy as acts of resistance.

Genres: Nonfiction, Classics, Journal, German Literature, Biography, Memoir

343 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Franz Kafka was a German-speaking writer from Prague whose work became one of the foundations of modern literature, even though he published only a small part of his writing during his lifetime. Born into a middle-class Jewish family in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kafka grew up amid German, Czech, and Jewish cultural influences that shaped his sense of displacement and linguistic precision. His difficult relationship with his authoritarian father left a lasting mark, fostering feelings of guilt, anxiety, and inadequacy that became central themes in his fiction and personal writings.
Kafka studied law at the German University in Prague, earning a doctorate in 1906. He chose law for practical reasons rather than personal inclination, a compromise that troubled him throughout his life. After university, he worked for several insurance institutions, most notably the Workers Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. His duties included assessing industrial accidents and drafting legal reports, work he carried out competently and responsibly. Nevertheless, Kafka regarded his professional life as an obstacle to his true vocation, and most of his writing was done at night or during periods of illness and leave. Kafka began publishing short prose pieces in his early adulthood, later collected in volumes such as Contemplation and A Country Doctor. These works attracted little attention at the time but already displayed the hallmarks of his mature style, including precise language, emotional restraint, and the application of calm logic to deeply unsettling situations. His major novels The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika were left unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime. They depict protagonists trapped within opaque systems of authority, facing accusations, rules, or hierarchies that remain unexplained and unreachable. Themes of alienation, guilt, bureaucracy, law, and punishment run throughout Kafka’s work. His characters often respond to absurd or terrifying circumstances with obedience or resignation, reflecting his own conflicted relationship with authority and obligation. Kafka’s prose avoids overt symbolism, yet his narratives function as powerful metaphors through structure, repetition, and tone. Ordinary environments gradually become nightmarish without losing their internal coherence. Kafka’s personal life was marked by emotional conflict, chronic self-doubt, and recurring illness. He formed intense but troubled romantic relationships, including engagements that he repeatedly broke off, fearing that marriage would interfere with his writing. His extensive correspondence and diaries reveal a relentless self-critic, deeply concerned with morality, spirituality, and the demands of artistic integrity. In his later years, Kafka’s health deteriorated due to tuberculosis, forcing him to withdraw from work and spend long periods in sanatoriums. Despite his illness, he continued writing when possible. He died young, leaving behind a large body of unpublished manuscripts. Before his death, he instructed his close friend Max Brod to destroy all of his remaining work. Brod ignored this request and instead edited and published Kafka’s novels, stories, and diaries, ensuring his posthumous reputation.
The publication of Kafka’s work after his death established him as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. The term Kafkaesque entered common usage to describe situations marked by oppressive bureaucracy, absurd logic, and existential anxiety. His writing has been interpreted through existential, religious, psychological, and political perspectives, though Kafka himself resisted definitive meanings. His enduring power lies in his ability to articulate modern anxiety with clarity and restraint.

Reviews

[Sofia Ash · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh Kafka, precious little one.

"I should have been that little dweller in the ruins, hearkening to the cries of the crows, soared over by their shadows, cooling under the moon, burnt by the sun which would have shone for me from all sides on my bed of ivy."

[Debra Daniels-Zeller · Rating 5 out of 5]

These dairies are fascinating. It's like being inside the mind of a writer. I loved the story fragments and beginnings of novels and some of his observations in his travel diaries were reminiscent of Karl on the Idiot Abroad. It was also interesting reading these entries along with the letters.

[Johannes Lilover · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really fair to rate it but whatever.
Dropped it at 65%

Insightful but too dreadful for my current needs.

[Sushmita Gautam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of my favorite excerpts from The Diaries of Franz Kafka. 1914- 1923


“Uncertainty, aridity, peace-all things will resolve them­ selves into these and pass away.” (January 8, 1914)

“There are possibilities for me, certainly; but under what stone do they lie?” (January 12, 1914)

“There is no doubt that I am hemmed in all around, though by something that has certainly not yet fixed itself in my flesh, that I occasionally feel slackening, and that could be burst asunder.” (March 8)

“Utter despair, impossible to pull myself together; only when I have become satisfied with my sufferings can I stop.” (November 25)

“Vague hopes, vague confidence.” ( November 2, 1921)

“This inescapable duty to observe oneself: if someone else is observing me, naturally I have to observe myself too; if none observes me, I have to observe myself all the closer.” (November 7, 1921)

“ the hopes of the morning are buried in the afternoon.” (January 24, 1922)

“The power comfort has over me, my powerlessness without it.” (February 14, 1922)

I loved the book !!!!! 🫡

[madeleine · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Besserer Zustand weil ich Strindberg (Entzweit) gelesen habe. Ich lese ihn nicht um ihn zu lesen sondern um an seiner Brust zu liegen. Er hält mich wie ein Kind auf seinem linken Arm. Ich sitze dort wie ein Mensch auf einer Statue."

"Dem Tod würde ich mich anvertrauen. Rest eines Glaubens. Rückkehr zum Vater. Großer Versöhnungstag."

[MattiaXu]

my fellow insomniac friend

[June · Rating 5 out of 5]

“one cannot make a life for oneself as a tumbler makes a handstand.”

[Kariem · Rating 4 out of 5]

You will find what you are looking for

[eve · Rating 1 out of 5]

to be honest it was incredibly boring, but that's probably how most diaries are. what annoyed me the most were the countless short stories or their fragments that made the reading severly more difficult. we didn't know any of the characters and sometimes had a hard time telling whether we're reading a part about Kafka's life or one of the story fragments. there was little continuity and it was quite tiring.

the several fragments worth attention were all depressing, but very artful, and the one or two glimmers of hope were pleasant to see

in the end it was a tiring reading, won't think about it fondly

[Kelly Rosalyn Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

'How happy are the married men, young and old both, in the office. Beyond my reach, though if it were within my reach I should find it intolerable, and yet it is the only thing with which I have any inclination to appease my longing.
Hesitation before birth. If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth.'

Franz Kafka you will always be famous xx

[Sara Pereda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a journal so it’s kind of sporadic at times, including characters we don’t always know, uses of the German language that are coloquial or outdated and inclusion of dreams, happenings and short stories. Honestly I really liked it and it’s a style of writing that’s super personal and gives you a direct outlet into Kafka life. However as mentioned, brace yourself, because it’s a bit hard to read at times.

[keira · Rating 5 out of 5]

😭😭😭😭😭

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

fr fr

[T’Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

So happy to say I finally finished this book. Took near the whole year. It was interesting to look into Kafka’s mind, to see his struggles with writing specifically despite writing plenty of great works in his life. It was also surreal to read this over such a long time because somehow I’d read an entry that related to what I was going through or feeling at the time and he made me feel seen.

I’m glad I read this, though I wish I had stuck to my guns and not read the travel diaries section (it was really boring I won’t lie). All in all, great read but definitely will not do it again (aside from looking at my quotes of course).

[Larry · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's interesting to note the sexual undertones in his words.

[Daria]

Read in a Russian translation & abridged edition.