As he was dying at age forty, Franz Kafka instructed his friend Max Brod to burn all his literary works upon his death, but Brod famously defied the request and published them to worldwide acclaim. At the time, Max Brod had been a household name, a celebrated author whose first novel was hailed as a masterpiece. Meanwhile, Kafka had spent his life walking the streets of Prague as a complete unknown, and died without ever suspecting that his hometown would soon become synonymous with his name. The world had been unequivocal in its judgment of the two writers, but posterity soon overturned the
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