The Diaries of Franz Kafka (The Schocken Kafka Library)

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR An essential new translation of the authors complete, uncensored diariesa revelation of the idiosyncrasies and rough edges of one of the twentieth centurys most influential writers. An invaluable addition to Kafkas oeuvre.The New York Times An essential new translation of Franz Kafkas complete, uncensored diariesa revelation of the idiosyncrasies and rough edges of one of the twentieth centurys most important, influential, and visionary writers Dating from 1909 to 1923, Franz Kafkas Diaries contains a broad array of writing, including accounts of daily events, assorted reflections and observations, literary sketches, drafts of letters, records of dreams, and unrevised texts of stories. This volume makes available for the first time in English a comprehensive reconstruction of Kafkas handwritten diary entries and provides substantial new content, restoring all the material omitted from previous publicationsnotably, names of people and undisguised details about them, a number of literary writings, and passages of a sexual nature, some of them with homoerotic overtones. By faithfully reproducing the diaries distinctive and often surprisingly unpolishedwriting as it appeared in Kafkas notebooks, translator Ross Benjamin brings to light not only the authors use of the diaries for literary invention and unsparing self-examination but also their value as a work of genius in and of themselves.