Reiner Stach's Books

Kafka

The Decisive Years

By: Reiner Stach

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This is the acclaimed central volume of the definitive biography of Franz Kafka. Reiner Stach spent more than a decade working with over four thousand pages of journals, letters, and literary fragments, many never before available, to re-create the atmosphere in which Kafka lived and worked from 1910 to 1915, the most important and best-documented years of his life. This period, which would prove crucial to Kafka's writing and set the course for the rest of his life, saw him working with astonishing intensity on his most seminal writings--The Trial, The Metamorphosis, The Man Who Disappeared (Amerika), and The Judgment. These are also the years of Kafka's fascination with Zionism; of his tumultuous engagement to Felice Bauer; and of the outbreak of World War I. Kafka: The Decisive Years is at once an extraordinary portrait of the writer and a startlingly original contribution to the art of literary biography.

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Page Count

592

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

069123356X

ISBN 13

9780691233567

Kafka

The Decisive Years

By: Reiner Stach

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Kafka

The Decisive Years

By: Reiner Stach

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Page Count

592

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0691147418

ISBN 13

9780691147413

Is that Kafka?: 99 Finds

By: Reiner Stach

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Is that Kafka?: 99 Finds

By: Reiner Stach

Out of the massive research for an authoritative 1,500-page biography emerges this wunderkammer of 99 delightfully odd facts about Kafka In the course of compiling his highly acclaimed three-volume biography of Kafka, while foraying to libraries and archives from Prague to Israel, Reiner Stach made one astounding discovery after another: unexpected photographs, inconsistencies in handwritten texts, excerpts from letters, and testimonies from Kafka’s contemporaries that shed surprising light on his personality and his writing. Is that Kafka? presents the crystal granules of the real Kafka: he couldn’t lie, but he tried to cheat on his high-school exams; bitten by the fitness fad, he avidly followed the regime of a Danish exercise guru; he drew beautifully; he loved beer; he read biographies voraciously; he made the most beautiful presents, especially for children; odd things made him cry or made him furious; he adored slapstick. Every discovery by Stach turns on its head the stereotypical version of the tortured neurotic—and as each one chips away at the monolithic dark Kafka, the keynote, of all things, becomes laughter. For Is that Kafka? Stach has assembled 99 of his most exciting discoveries, culling the choicest, most entertaining bits, and adding his knowledge-able commentaries. Illustrated with dozens of previously unknown images, this volume is a singular literary pleasure.

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Page Count

399

Publisher

New Directions Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0811224554

ISBN 13

9780811224550

Is that Kafka?: 99 Finds

By: Reiner Stach

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Is that Kafka?: 99 Finds

By: Reiner Stach

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Page Count

399

Publisher

New Directions Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0811224554

ISBN 13

9780811224550

Kafka

The Early Years

By: Reiner Stach

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Kafka

The Early Years

By: Reiner Stach

The eagerly anticipated final volume of the award-winning, definitive biography of Franz Kafka How did Kafka become Kafka? This eagerly anticipated third and final volume of Reiner Stach's definitive biography of the writer answers that question with more facts and insight than ever before, describing the complex personal, political, and cultural circumstances that shaped the young Franz Kafka (1883–1924). It tells the story of the years from his birth in Prague to the beginning of his professional and literary career in 1910, taking the reader up to just before the breakthrough that resulted in his first masterpieces, including "The Metamorphosis." Brimming with vivid and often startling details, Stach’s narrative invites readers deep inside this neglected period of Kafka’s life. The book’s richly atmospheric portrait of his German Jewish merchant family and his education, psychological development, and sexual maturation draws on numerous sources, some still unpublished, including family letters, schoolmates’ memoirs, and early diaries of his close friend Max Brod. The biography also provides a colorful panorama of Kafka’s wider world, especially the convoluted politics and culture of Prague. Before World War I, Kafka lived in a society at the threshold of modernity but torn by conflict, and Stach provides poignant details of how the adolescent Kafka witnessed violent outbreaks of anti-Semitism and nationalism. The reader also learns how he developed a passionate interest in new technologies, particularly movies and airplanes, and why another interest—his predilection for the back-to-nature movement—stemmed from his “nervous” surroundings rather than personal eccentricity. The crowning volume to a masterly biography, this is an unmatched account of how a boy who grew up in an old Central European monarchy became a writer who helped create modern literature.

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Page Count

613

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1400884470

ISBN 13

9781400884476

Kafka

The Early Years

By: Reiner Stach

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Kafka

The Early Years

By: Reiner Stach

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Page Count

580

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0691178186

ISBN 13

9780691178189

Kafka

The Years of Insight

By: Reiner Stach

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Kafka

The Years of Insight

By: Reiner Stach

Telling the story of Kafka's final years as never before—the third volume in the acclaimed definitive biography This volume of Reiner Stach's acclaimed and definitive biography of Franz Kafka tells the story of the final years of the writer's life, from 1916 to 1924—a period during which the world Kafka had known came to an end. Stach's riveting narrative, which reflects the latest findings about Kafka's life and works, draws readers in with nearly cinematic precision, zooming in for extreme close-ups of Kafka's personal life, then pulling back for panoramic shots of a wider world blighted by World War I, disease, and inflation. In these years, Kafka was spared military service at the front, yet his work as a civil servant brought him into chilling proximity with its grim realities. He was witness to unspeakable misery, lost the financial security he had been counting on to lead the life of a writer, and remained captive for years in his hometown of Prague. The outbreak of tuberculosis and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire constituted a double shock for Kafka, and made him agonizingly aware of his increasing rootlessness. He began to pose broader existential questions, and his writing grew terser and more reflective, from the parable-like Country Doctor stories and A Hunger Artist to The Castle. A door seemed to open in the form of a passionate relationship with the Czech journalist Milena Jesenská. But the romance was unfulfilled and Kafka, an incurably ill German Jew with a Czech passport, continued to suffer. However, his predicament only sharpened his perceptiveness, and the final period of his life became the years of insight.

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Page Count

694

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

140086545X

ISBN 13

9781400865451

Book's by Reiner Stach

Kafka

Kafka

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Kafka

Is that Kafka?: 99 Finds

Is that Kafka?: 99 Finds

Is that Kafka?: 99 Finds

Is that Kafka?: 99 Finds

Kafka

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