The Lost Pages

Начало книги

FOR SCHOLARS OF KAFKA, THE NEWS OF THE FORTHCOMING release of the Kafka papers raised the tantalising prospect, however unlikely, of an undiscovered novel by the great author. The trial leading to the release of the papers was initiated principally by the Israeli National Library, whom I assisted, against the Hoffe/Wiesler sisters. The sisters’ possession of the papers has kept them from public view since Max Brod supposedly handed the papers to the mother of the Hoffe/Wiesler sisters in the 1960s, and the trial has once again focused the international spotlight on the legacy of Kafka. Hopes of a lost work were dashed, however, by the release of a documents list during the discovery stage of proceedings: the Kafka papers consist only of short notes, drawings and a memoir—the latter not by Kafka but by Brod. Yet this memoir of Brod’s was for me a more exciting prospect still.

Franz Kafka is undoubtedly the most important figure in modern German-language literature, but the survival of his work is only due to the lesser-known Brod. As the story goes, when Kafka lay in bed dying of tuberculosis, his friend Brod at his bedside, his last words were, ‘Burn all my work—everything—and spare none of it.’ Thankfully, Brod defied the instruction. At that time, only a few of Kafka’s short stories, including ‘The Metamorphosis’, had been published and this only with Brod’s help.

Читать дальше →