FRANZ KAFKA was born in Prague in 1883 to German-speaking Jewish parents. During his lifetime, he published groundbreaking short stories, including “The Judgment,” “The Stoker,” and “The Metamorphosis.” After his death in 1924, his friend and literary executor, Max Brod, defied his testamentary instructions to burn all his unpublished writing. Kafka’s posthumous work— including three unfinished novels, The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika—brought him worldwide renown.
ROSS BENJAMIN’s translations include Friedrich Hölderlin’s Hyperion, Joseph Roth’s Job, and Daniel Kehlmann’s You Should Have Left and Tyll. He was awarded the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize for his rendering of Michael Maar’s Speak, Nabokov, and he received a Guggenheim Fellowship for his work on Franz Kafka’s diaries.
