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His birth
Franz Kafka was the eldest son of an upper middle-class Jewish family who was born on July 3, 1883, in Prague, the capital of Bohemia, a kingdom that was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Which is currently the Czech Republic -
His brothers death
Franz´s two youngers brothers, George and Heinrich, died in infancy by the time Kafka was 6, leaving the boy the only son in a family that included three daughters. -
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Primary Studies
He completed his primary studies between 1889 and 1893, at the Deutsche Knabenschule, located in Masný trh / Fleischmarkt, currently Masná ulice. His parents had little attachment to Jewish traditions and, apart from celebrating the Bar Mitzvah, when Franz turned 13 he reluctantly went to the synagogue just four times a year, accompanied by his father. -
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Secondary Education
He completed secondary education, between the ages of ten and eighteen, at the rigorous Altstädter Deutsches Gymnasium (Royal Imperial High School), located inside the Kinský Palace, in Prague's Old Town Square. -
"Free School"
During the last years of his adolescence he became a member of the Freie Schule ("Free School"), an anticlerical institution. He avidly read Nietzsche, Darwin, and Haeckel, had a real enthusiasm for socialism (especially when it comes to the ideal of solidarity) and atheism. -
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College Life
After passing the baccalaureate exam in 1901, he began studying Chemistry at the University of Prague, but it only lasted two weeks. Next, he also tried German Art History and Philology, but finally, forced by his father, 17 studied Law. Alfred Weber (brother of Max Weber), professor of sociology, exerted an enormous influence on him and directed his doctoral thesis. Kafka was impressed by the way he analyzed industrial society and its dangers. -
Law Degree
In 1906 Kafka completed his law degree and embarked on a year of unpaid work as a law clerk -
First Job
After completing his apprenticeship, Kafka found work with an Italian insurance agency in late 1907 -
Workers Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia
After turning in his resignation he quickly found a new job with the Workers´ Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. -
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Several Trips Abroad
Between 1909 and 1912 he made several trips abroad: Riva (1909), Paris (1910), again to Italy and Paris (1911), and Weimar (1912). -
His beginnings as a writer
In 1912 Kafka became aware of being a writer. In eight hours he wrote The Trial (Das Urteil) and, in late November 1912, he completed Contemplation (Betrachtung), a collection of eighteen stories that had previously appeared scattered in various media. The appearance of this book made him known as a writer. -
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Felice Bauer
Between 1913 and 1917 he had a difficult relationship with Felice Bauer, due to her father, who was not happy with the evil Kafka caused in his daughter's mental health. -
The Metamorphosis
In 1915 Kafka wrote "The Metamorphosis", a book that gave him great popularity. -
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Julie Wohryzek
In 1917, during his stay in Schlesen to attend a sanatorium he met Julie Wohryzek, with whom he was engaged to be married. The non-bourgeois social extraction of the young woman put Kafka's father against the relationship. The relationship with Julie was broken in November 1919. -
Pulmonary Tuberculosis
The night of August 12 to 13, hemoptysis manifested that confirmed pulmonary tuberculosis. -
Dora Diamant
In July 1923 he was in a Jewish colony on vacation in Müritz on the Baltic shore, where he met Dora Diamant, a 25-year-old journalist from an Orthodox Jewish family who had fled her hometown. She shared with him his Jewish roots and a preference for socialism. Admist Kafka´s increasingly dire health, the two fell in love and lived together in Berlin -
His death
Franz Kafka died in Kierling, Austria, on June 3, 1924. He was buried beside his parents in Prague´s New Jewish Cementery in Olsanske
