Kafka

It’s dif­fi­cult to imag­ine that there was ever a time with­out the phrase “Kafkaesque.” But the time period would have meant noth­ing in any respect to any­one alive similtaneously Franz Kaf­ka — includ­ing, in all prob­a­bil­i­ty, Kaf­ka him­self. Born in Prague in 1883, he grew up below a stern, demand­ing, and per­pet­u­al­ly dis­ap­level­ed father, then…