Unseen Kafka Work to be Released?

If another author’s wishes were honoured, however, we might not have some of the 20th century’s greatest literary works.

During his lifetime Franz Kafka’s published works received little attention.

When Kafka died in Prague in 1924, he left his surviving literary estate with friend and publisher Max Brod, with the explicit instructions to destroy everything. Kafka himself had already burned about 90% of his life’s work himself in the preceding years.

Brod, thankfully, ignored the writer’s request.

In 1939, when the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia, Brod fled Prague for Palestine with a suitcase full of unpublished Kafka material including drafts, notes, diaries, and drawings.

Some of this material was subsequently edited and published in volumes of collected works. But the majority of it remains unseen.

When Brod passed away in 1968, he left the material with his secretary and caretaker, Esther Hoffe. He gave her the instruction to continue to publish Kafka’s work and entrust the writer’s literary estate with a suitable institution.

During this time, the National Library of Israel has been attempting to obtain the works in Hoffe’s possession, a request in line with Brod’s will.

Hoffe died in 2007, leaving a surviving daughter in possession of the unpublished Kafka works. A lawsuit was filed by the Library challenging Hoffe’s will, claiming that she never followed Brod’s instructions on what to do with the material.

Of course, if we take that logic back to Kafka, all the works would be destroyed.

Still, the search for Kafka’s work goes on. Like Brod, Kafka’s last lover Dora Diamant also ignored the writer’s request to destroy his material, keeping some 20 notebooks and 35 letters.