Dante the Man Book

This is a short book and not really a full biography (It is part of a series: "Overlook Illustrated Lives is a series of photographic biographies..." ) I thought it was well written, with many interesting photographs, drawings, etc. of Kafka, family and friends. Kafka is one of my most beloved authors so I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. The author did not have a literary/theoretical ax to grind, so that was good, and I learned that Kafka read Kierkegaard, which seems entirely as it should be, but I never knew that. Highly recommended to anyone who would like an overview of Kafka's life in connection with reading his novels and stories.

(Part of the poignancy of Kafka has to do with his death and the fates of many of those he cared for: He died in 1924 of TB, which infected and silenced him even before it killed him. His parents died in the 1930s. In the background you can practically feel the gathering darkness: All three of Kafka's sisters died in the camps, his uncle committed suicide to avoid deportation, his great love Milena also died in a camp. But his best friend, Max Brod, escaped to Palestine with the manuscripts that Kafka had instructed him to burn--thank god he disobeyed! All of these facts, to me, radiate throughout Kafka's writing's, making him one of the great prophet of the 20th Century.)