Kafka Published in Czech for the First Time

Kafka lived in Prague, his hometown, but German was his mother tongue and language in which he wrote his works.

The collected works of Franz Kafka were published in the Czech language in their entirety for the first time, 83 years after the author’s death. 

Kafka (1883 – 1924) was born in Prague and lived there, but German was his mother tongue and the language in which he wrote his literary works.

With the release of the 13^th tome, the project of Kafka’s collected works in Czech is finally complete, reports the Franz Kafka Society in Prague on Friday. 

Kafka, son of a Jewish merchant, wrote a series of novellas, short stories and novels in German. The translation of his works into Czech was impossible to achieve prior to 1990 because the communist regime in Czechoslovakia felt that Kafka’s visions were ‘too reactionary.’

Before that, Kafka’s works were also undesirable in the eyes of the national-socialist government. 

After the political changes in the early 1990s, the Franz Kafka Society in Prague launched the translation project, which cost 360,000 euros. Kurt Krolopa, expert in German studies, was at the helm of the project. He is one of the leading specialists in Prague literature written in German.    

The majority of a total of 13 tomes had never been translated to Czech before and the works that had been previously translated were translated again as part of the project.