In this episode of The Author Files, we open the case file on Franz Kafka — a writer whose work captured the quiet terror of existing within systems that cannot be understood, challenged, or escaped. From The Metamorphosis to The Trial and The Castle, Kafka created worlds where punishment arrives without explanation, authority is faceless, and guilt is assumed long before it is earned.

But behind the word “Kafkaesque” was a deeply fragile, conflicted man. Born a German-speaking Ashkenazi Jew in Prague, Kafka lived a life shaped by illness, insomnia, cultural dislocation, a domineering father, and a relentless sense of personal failure. Writing was not a hobby or ambition — it was survival. A form of prayer. And yet, he never believed his work deserved to live beyond him.

This episode traces Kafka’s life in full: his family, education, working life, turbulent relationships, declining health, and the fiction that emerged from his inner torment. We explore his complicated relationship with identity, authority, sexuality, and faith, as well as the legacy he never lived to see — including the devastating fate of his sisters during the Holocaust.

Kafka died believing he had failed. History tells a very different story.

This is not just the life of a writer — it is the story of a man who articulated the fears many of us struggle to name, and whose work continues to speak for the anxious, the alienated, and the unseen