A richly illustrated account of the life of one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century Franz Kafka's name has become synonymous with the dark side of modernity. Born into a Jewish family in Prague in 1883, Kafka grew up amidst the social and political turmoil of the fin de siecle. His writing reflects these tensions as well as his own tortured emotional life.

But it is Kafka's ability to transform his dream-like inner life into the language of the every day and, at the same time, portray the terror facing the individual in a hostile, indifferent world that makes his work still speak to us today.

The illustrations in this volume include rarely seen drawings from Kafka's workbooks, images of the Prague environment that inspired his nightmarish modernist masterpieces, photos of Kafka with friends and colleagues, and reproductions of letters, manuscripts, and first edition book jackets. Along with the text by renowned Kafka scholar Jeremy Adler, they constitute an invaluable introduction and resource for students and readers of Kafka