Franz Kafka

Kafka was born into a middle-class, German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, the capital of Bohemia. His father, Hermann Kafka (1852–1931), was described as a "huge, selfish, overbearing businessman" and by Kafka himself as "a true Kafka in strength, health, appetite, loudness of voice, eloquence, self-satisfaction, worldly dominance, endurance, presence of mind, [and] knowledge of human nature". Hermann was the fourth child of Jacob Kafka, a ritual slaughterer, and came to Prague from Osek, a Czech-speaking Jewish village near Písek in southern Bohemia.

The name of , a genius who in our view still remains unappreciated, does not say much to the majority of simple-minded readers. His name brings in an overwhelming majority of people who read or merely heard of him, an attack of melancholy, associations with something gloomy, incomprehensible, illogical or, at best, it reminds of some mysterious depths of subconscious. Nevertheless the name of this writer is certainly fashionable and not a single, even a tiny bit self-respecting reader can admit not reading Kafka even if, having stumbled on the first story, he shut the book of this marvelous author forever.