Kafka is regarded as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, and his name gave rise to the term "Kafkaesque."

A German-speaking Jew from Prague, he worked for most of his career as an official at the Workers' Accident Insurance Institute for Bohemia.

• Before his death from tuberculosis in 1924, he asked his friend Max Brod to burn his unpublished manuscripts; Brod instead published them.

His bibliography includes: • The Judgment (1912) • The Metamorphosis (1915) • The Trial (1925) • The Castle (1926) • Amerika (1927)