Hi,
I´ve already talked about it in other places, with a little different point of view, once it was not in places about Czech Republic, but about Literature in general. Anyway, I would like to know what is the general position of Czech people to Franz Kafka.
Is he considered a national pride or not?
Here, in Brazil, and probably there too, the books have some catalogue information, so, my Kafka´s books, althought the three I have are by the same edition and by the same translator, have different informations for catalogue, two of them are considered as "German literature" and the other as "Czech literature in German".
I think 'German literature' is not the best option. I like this "Czech literature in German", but I don´t have enough knowledge to tell if the most of the cultural influences on Kafka were German and/or Austrian or Czech. There is also his Jewish heritage.
In the end, it becomes a "patriotic" matter. Germans and Austrians will claim Kafka for them, because it´s "their" language. Czechs claims him because he was born in Prague. And Jewish have their merits as well, by the way, he is buried in a Jewish cemitary.
Perhaps, it is a nonending and nonsolution matter like some of Kafka´s own books.
Good bye.:
As many famous people, Kafka has multiple identies. Basically, he was a German-speaking Jew living in Prague at the turn of the century writing in German working for an insurance company speaking Czech. As such all three groups can and do claim him as an achievement. However, he also belongs to his own group which was the German-speaking Jewish community in Central Europe. That produced other writers like Max Brod or Paul Leppin (the Prague-based publisher Twisted Spoon Press specializes in publishing English translations of Central European literature including those of German-speaking Jewish Czech residents).
However, you probably won't find Kafka in histories of Czech literature. His influence on the Czech literary scene was the same as that of any other world writer. So the main expression of Czech pride in him is expressed through T-Shirts and other souvenirs that can be sold to tourists visting Prague.
Hi,
O, Kafka knew how to speak Czech. I was always in doubt about it. Then, the Czech under the Austrian power spoke Czech at common situations and used German as erudite and scorlarship language?
I do not know Max Brod as an writer, to me, and to many other people, he was the man who disobeyed his friend and did a favour to humanity (alright, a little less). About Paul Leppin I never heard about, but by what you said, it seems that he done a good work of divulgation.
Now I remember that there is another famous writer who was born in Prague but did not write in Czech, Rilke. But I have not read him yet.
By the way, I think the only translated Czech-born writers around here, in Brazil, are these two, Kafka and Rilke, and Milan Kundera, that do not write in Czech anymore.
Well, to be in a t-shirt is a begging, it is better than being completly forgotten.
Thank you, Dominik.
Good bye.: