British biographer Nicholas Murray reflects on Kafka's life this month, on the 100th anniversary of his death

As Writers & Company wraps up after 33 remarkable years, we revisit selected episodes from the series' archives.

Born in 1883 in Prague into a German-speaking Jewish family, Franz Kafka is one of the most famous writers of the 20th century.

He was known for his absurdist writings, notably the short story Metamorphosis and the novels The Trial, The Castle And The man who disappeared. He died of tuberculosis in 1924 when he was just 40 years old and this month marks the 100th anniversary of his death.

In honor of his literary legacy, we revisit a 2005 conversation with English writer Nicholas Murray who wrote Kafka's 2004 biography.

Kafka's call

“I first read it when I was young, an undergraduate student, I was a literature student and I was discovering for the first time all these big names. And it seemed like there was, at the era, in the late 60s, early 70s, there was no bigger name than that of Kafka.The trial, for example, was one of those books that you really felt like you had to read. And I kind of lived with him the whole time.

“I think the appeal is largely what it has always remained, an intriguing strangeness and originality. There is actually no one like Kafka. He is unique. The extraordinary uniqueness of his imagination does not did not seem analogous to that of Kafka whatever I was reading at that time.

There really is no one like Kafka. It is unique.-Nicholas Murray

“One of the interesting characteristics of him is this extraordinary conjunction of a wonderful simplicity and clarity of style with an opacity of meaning. So we always know where we stand with him from one point of view, and from one other point of view, we do not know. He is infinitely mysterious and enigmatic.

“And yet, the current language is a language of great clarity and purity, there is an interesting paradox there.”

His parents' response to his writings

“His father, and keep in mind the kind of man he was, the kind of life he had, almost no schooling, struggling to make a hobby of literature and art, it was something that had never been granted to him and he was a rather rough and noisy businessman who didn't really understand his son's writings. He didn't read them; it didn't mean anything to him.

“Kafka's mother was equally unhelpful, referring to her son's work as a hobby which angered him and his friend Max Brod, because for them literature was a matter of life and death, which was definitely not a hobby or something to pass the time.

For them, literature was a matter of life and death, it was certainly not a hobby or something to pass the time.-Nicholas Murray

“So I think it was a sort of more or less complete misunderstanding and perhaps it's worth saying that most of the writings that we know of, the three major novels, were all published posthumously. I mean, it would be a mistake to give the impression that Kafka was unknown during his lifetime. He was known at the time to a small informed literary readership. He did not die in obscurity. total literary work, but the major works by which we know him today were published posthumously.

A paradoxical personality

“The books can sometimes seem quite dark. But he had a sense of humor. You could see it in his letters, a light touch. He could also be, of course, obsessive and tragic and so on in those same letters. but he had a light spirit, humor and warmth.

“Although he was perhaps a very solitary character, rather quiet and reserved in many ways, he also had a real warmth with the people who met. He was popular with those around him in Prague and they would go out to the cafes and bars Although he spent long hours silently in his room writing, he also had a sociable side.

“He loved swimming. He rowed. He loved walking. And he was very much an outdoors person. He didn't travel a lot. He tended to move around. He loved going to and staying at health centers . and so on, basking in the air and in various quack remedies and cures that existed at that time, at the beginning of the 20th century.

“He was always noted by his friends as being very well dressed. He had a very keen sense of being well dressed, etc. He was very, very elegant. He was a bit of a hypochondriac, I suppose. He was often genuinely ill and often spent a lot of time, I think, worrying about being sick. He worried a lot about his health.

“And of course, he actually died very prematurely from tuberculosis of the larynx. So he didn't make that up. But I think his health was definitely an issue for him because, his whole life, from the point of view his health, he devoted himself to the art of writing, and sometimes his body and his health let him down. Sometimes it was his family, sometimes it was the fact of having to work. these obstacles to writing, which seemed to stand in his way and made him even more determined to continue.

On writing Kafka's biography

“I think I came to see him more and more as a real human being. I knew his works, his writings, his literary profile, so to speak, but I think I developed the feeling of someone 'one who was a real human being All the strange, haunting, enigmatic qualities of his writing were those of someone who made sense in a way that life had, however extraordinary, a logic, a coherence. and an interest.

“And I also think I found him to be an attractive personality. Now, you might infer from the books, a feeling of someone being rather cold or distant, but I think there was, in his relationships with his friends , you see there was a warmth and generosity of spirit in his private correspondence that I believe enlivens these books What if they were just a kind of lament or protest or a cry of dissatisfaction. , as we see in the pages of one of his plays, A letter to father, then they would be lesser works. But I think they are imbued with a very deep feeling of an interesting personality behind them. »

Nicholas Murray's comments have been edited for length and clarity.