Franz Kafka: The Poet of Shame and Guilt By Saul Friedländer Yale University Press, 224 pages, $25 If ever there was an author whose works resisted analysis, it’s Franz Kafka. What does it mean ...

July 3 would have marked Franz Kafka’s 139th birthday. To this day, the literary legend’s name rings so ubiquitous that we use it as an adjective. He still has a few thrills in store.

According to Kafka biographer Frederick R. Karl, Franz Kafka is the only 20th century author whose name has become part of the English speaking lexicon, “…in a way no other writer’s has ...

The reason: Today is Franz Kafka’s 130th birthday — or at least, it would have been, if he hadn’t died of starvation brought on by tuberculosis in 1924. All of us will die, someday.

If Wednesday’s Google Doodle looks a little buggy, if you will, that’s because it’s meant to celebrate Franz Kafka, the “Metamorphosis” author who would have turned 130 today.

Kafka's particular sensibility also lives on through the adjective "Kafkaesque,"which can be found in many languages including German, English, Korean, Turkish, French, Japanese, Russian and Italian.

Before succumbing to tuberculosis in 1924, a month shy of his 41st birthday, Franz Kafka made clear to his best friend and literary executor, Max Brod, that he wanted all of his unpublished ...