This is the first book about Kafka that uses the writer's medical records. Gillman explores the relation of the body to cultural myths, and brings a unique and fascinating perspective to Kafka's life and writings.

After Franz Kafka died in 1924, his novels and short stories were published in ways that downplayed both their author's roots in Prague and his engagement with Jewish tradition and language, so as to secure their place in the German literary canon. Now, nearly a century after Kafka began to create his fictions, Germany, Israel, and the Czech Republic lay claim to his legacy. Kafka's Jewish Languages brings Kafka's stature as a specifically Jewish writer into focus. David Suchoff explores the Yiddish and modern Hebrew that inspired Kafka's vision of tradition. Citing the Jewish sources crucial to the development of Kafka's style, the book demonstrates the intimate relationship between the author's Jewish modes of expression and the larger literary significance of his works. Suchoff shows how "The Judgment" evokes Yiddish as a language of comic curse and examines how Yiddish, African American, and culturally Zionist voices appear in the unfinished novel, Amerika. In his reading of The Trial, Suchoff highlights the black humor Kafka learned from the Yiddish theater, and he interprets The Castle in light of Kafka's involvement with the renewal of the Hebrew language. Finally, he uncovers the Yiddish and Hebrew meanings behind Kafka's "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse-Folk" and considers the recent legal case in Tel Aviv over the possession of Kafka's missing manuscripts as a parable of the transnational meanings of his writing.

Index.

New essays providing an up-to-date picture of the engagement of artists, philosophers, and critics with Kafka's work.

Includes the index to the Journal of the International Arthur Schnitzler Research Association, 1961-67.

Presents the undiminished popularity of Kafka, showing him in a global context. Volume I is a bibliography of primary literature 1908-1997, documenting Kafka's works and their translations. Volume II, the annotated bibliography of secondary literature 1955-1997, provides a survey of the still increasing flood of articles and books on Kafka's work.

Jewish identity in German culture remains in a critical state of flux. Analyzing its construction and perception in public discourse, the contributors of this volume discuss the works of a number of authors—from Kafka to new writers such as Irene Dische and Maxim Biller. In addition, topics covered include: American-Jewish writers in Germany, minority culture, homosexuality, and Jewish magazines.