Most impressive is Stach's recounting of the creation of his subject's writings... Stach's own writing is wonderfully expressive. Publishers Weekly (starred review) A scrupulous, discriminating, and highly instructive account of Kafka's life. -- Robert Alter New Republic Stach aims to tell us all that can be known about [Kafka], avoiding the fancies and extrapolations of earlier biographers. The result is an enthralling synthesis, one that reads beautifully?. I can't say enough about the liveliness and richness of Stach's book?. Every page of this book feels excited, dynamic, utterly alive. -- Michael Dirda Washington Post Book World Stach's is a splendid effort and will be hard to surpass. -- William H. Gass Harper's Magazine A masterpiece of inspired biographical writing. Choice Probing... Essential reading. Booklist Magnificent. Die Zeit Stach develops the various elements that play a role in Kafka's life brilliantly. Der Spiegel The first great biography of Franz Kafka ... exciting and instructive from the first to the last page. Tagesanzeiger This extraordinary biography fills the empty spaces between Kafka's own writings and the writings of friends, family, and contemporaries with so much empathy and imagination that one can't put it down. Frankfurter Rundschau

Reiner Stach worked extensively on the definitive edition of Kafka's collected works before embarking on this three-volume biography. The third volume, "Kafka: The Years of Insight" (Princeton), covering Kafka's final years, is also available. The first volume, covering Kafka's childhood and youth, is forthcoming.

Introduction 1 PROLOGUE: The Black Star 16 1 At Home with the Kafkas 21 2 Bachelors, Young and Old 42 3 Actors, Zionists, Wild People 54 4 Literature and Loneliness: Leipzig and Weimar 71 5 Last Stop Jungborn 86 6 A Young Lady from Berlin 94 7 The Ecstasy of Beginning: "The Judgment" and "The Stoker" 108 8 A Near Defenestration 119 9 The Girl, the Lady, and the Woman 134 10 Love and a Longing for Letters 145 11 Exultant Weeks, Little Intrigues 159 12 The Bauer Family 169 13 America and Back: The Man Who Disappeared 175 14 The Lives of Metaphors: "The Metamorphosis" 192 15 The Fear of Going Mad 206 16 Balkan War: The Massacre Next Door 226 17 1913 231 18 The Man Who Disappeared: Perfection and Disintegration 242 19 Invention and Exaggeration 253 20 Sexual Trepidation and Surrender 266 21 The Working World: High Tech and the Ghostsof Bureaucracy 281 22 The Proposal 297 23 Literature, Nothing but Literature 324 24 Three Congresses in Vienna 350 25 Trieste, Venice, Verona, Riva 368 26 Grete Bloch: The Messenger Arrives 379 27 An All-Time Low 390 28 Kafka and Musil 401 29 Matrimonial Plans and Asceticism 413 30 Tribunal in Berlin 433 31 The Great War 444 32 Self-Inflicted Justice: The Trial and "In the Penal Colony" 464 33 The Return of the East 484 34 The Grand Disruption 493 35 No-Man's-Land 508 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 517 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE 519 KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS 521 NOTES 523 BIBLIOGRAPHY 551 PHOTO CREDITS 563 INDEX 565