The White Ravens Database

Presented by   Internationale Jugendbibliothek / International Youth Library

Czech / Czech Republic

Franz Kafka. Člověk své i naší doby

(Franz Kafka. A person of his time and ours)

Malý, Radek (text)
Fučíková, Renáta (illus.)
Praha: Práh, 2017. – [100] p.
ISBN 978-80-7252-674-1

Kafka, Franz  | Biography  | Non-fiction

Reading age: 10+

White Ravens issue: 2018

OPAC

What of Kafka has actually stayed with us? First, he lived in Prague, wrote in German and was Jewish. Second, he wrote a story in which the hero wakes up one morning as an insect. Third, he had problems with his father, with work, with women and with everything, generally. These three widely held views are taken up by the wonderful lyricist and German cultural scholar Radek Malý (b. 1977) as the starting point for his Kafka biography for children. Together with the equally marvellous illustrator Renáta Fučíková (b. 1964), he succeeds not only in examining those common views and contextualizing Kafka within his family, his city, his religion, and his time. The author and illustrator also succeed in re-creating the Kafka-esque atmosphere of his short stories and novels. The informative biographical segments are interrupted by excerpts from Kafka’s own texts and accompanied and enhanced by the dark and surreal black-and-white drawings typical of Fučíková.