Franz Kafka was one of the major German-language fiction writers of the 20th century. He was born to a middle-class Jewish family in Prague, Austria-Hungary . His unique body of writing—much of which is incomplete and was published posthumously—is among the most influential in Western literature.
His stories, such as The Metamorphosis , and novels, including The Trial and The Castle , concern troubled individuals in a nightmarishly impersonal and bureaucratic world.