Burn all manuscripts: did Franz Kafka really want his work destroyed after his death?
There’s nothing the literary world loves more than an enigmatic figure, fictional or otherwise, and perhaps no one fits that standard better than the elusive great Franz Kafka. Although he has become somewhat a model of his own vein of novelistic parlance since his death a century ago, Kafka lived out the duration of his relatively short life and career as almost an unknown – not only because of a lack of societal popularity but because, it seemed, that he just quite liked the mysteriousness of it all.
Very few of Kafka’s works were actually published in his lifetime, and even those that were didn’t exactly cause literary shockwaves. Even his now seminal novella Metamorphosis, when published in a literary magazine in 1915, received very little acclaim at the time. This was duly part of the reason why as much as 90% of Kafka’s works have gone unpublished, as his scant public reverence meant he suffered from crippling self-esteem issues and preferred to keep his words private.
It may seem easy to state that bringing these lost gems to light would be the subject of a literary revelation, but the issue was that Kafka ensured none of his works could ever be published, as he – quite dramatically – set about burning them all to smithereens.
A historical travesty or a smart move of privacy, the true inner psyche of the author is as much a mystery as his work itself, making him the towering enigmatic giant of experimental literature that he is regarded as today. Given that Kafka died from tuberculosis in 1924 at just 40 years old and only gained prominence in the literary world posthumously, very limited analysis can be given surrounding authorial intention. He is as now as much a character on his own scale as any of those in his stories – but at least one overbearing myth surrounding him can now be dispelled.
Franz Kafka’s dying wish?
Much like the work that he burned of his own will when alive, it was Kafka’s dying wish that the remainder of his literary footprint was also to be destroyed in the wake of his passing. He had bestowed this responsibility on to his literary executor and close friend, Max Brod, but with a rebellious defiance – and likely knowing what gold dust he was holding on to – Kafka’s desires were not followed.
Instead of extinguishing his friend’s literary legacy without a trace, Brod indeed ignited it by publishing his three novels, The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika, in 1927. Although the works were incomplete, likely owing to Kafka’s indecisiveness and lack of confidence, they nevertheless set the world alight, particularly in Germany, after the conclusion of World War II.
In many ways, the work of Kafka is an intriguing paradox – the canon of absurdist literature would be nothing without him, but is it really right to celebrate his work knowing that it was blatantly against his wishes and that, ultimately, we shouldn’t be party to it? Contrary to popular legend, Kafka lived on due to his close friend failing his trust, and although this was for noble enough reasons, it goes much of the way in explaining why his surrealist yarns continue to wind readers in more and more.
