Franz Kafka is one of the most iconic writers of modern world literature, his canonical status and widespread recognisability captured in the ubiquitous adjective “Kafkaesque”. 2024 saw the centenary of the Prague-based, German-speaking writer’s untimely death from tuberculosis in a sanatorium on the outskirts of Vienna in June 1924. The Bodleian Library is home to the largest collection of Kafka’s papers in the world. Together with colleagues from across the University, the Faculty’s Oxford Kafka Research Centre and its Co-Directors Carolin Duttlinger, Katrin Kohl, and Barry Murnane were the driving force behind the “Oxford Kafka 2024” Festival, celebrating both the writer himself and Oxford’s role in his global reputation. Aided by a major grant from the Arts & Humanities Research Council for a three-year project entitled Kafka’s Transformative Communities, and joined by an incredible team of early-career researchers, Ian Ellison, Meindert Peters, and Karolina Watroba, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Oxford’s Kafka scholars to showcase the importance of literature, language learning, and the transformative potential of the creative arts. Alongside a major exhibition hosted at the Weston Library, Kafka: Making of an Icon, “Oxford Kafka 2024” included public readings, lectures, and newly commissioned artworks such as award-winning choreographer Arthur Pita’s astonishing multimedia dance adaptation of A Hunger Artist, a scenic reading of Kafka’s shorter fiction by Kristin Scott-Thomas entitled Deep Cuts, and three BBC Radio 4 dramas by Ed Harris, to name only some of the more prominent events.
From obscure Prague write to global icon
At the time of Kafka’s death in 1924, the idea of Oxford being at the centre of a worldwide celebration of his works would have raised many eyebrows, not least those of Kafka himself. He was virtually unknown outside of Prague and only a small circle of writers and critics would have been familiar with his works. It is well-known that he didn’t finish any of his novels like The Trial or The Castle, but his shorter fiction was published by some of the leading avant-garde publishers of the day, like Kurt Wolff in Leipzig, and in widely-read German literary journals like Die neue Rundschau. We only know of a handful of public readings of his works, including one of his breakthrough story The Judgement, in Prague, and another of In the Penal Colony in Munich. The latter reading was a notorious disaster, with the audience disgusted by the goriness of the story. Indeed contemporaries like the writer Franz Werfel – now almost forgotten, but one of Prague’s most successful writers of the time – said that Kafka’s literary fame would never reach beyond Bodenbach, the border town between Bohemia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Saxony in the German Empire. His friend of many years, Max Brod, was convinced of his literary genius, however, and ignored Kafka’s dying wish to have his unpublished works, letters, and diaries burned.
Kafka and Oxford
Oxford occupies a central role part in Kafka’s global legacy. When the Nazis marched into Czechoslovakia in 1939, Max Brod took literally the last train to leave Prague towards the East with a bag containing Kafka’s manuscripts, travelling via Turkey to Mandate Palestine. He settled in Tel Aviv, from where he continued to shape Kafka’s global fame through multiple updated editions and arrangements with publishers in Germany and the US. Brod deposited Kafka’s papers in the Schocken Library in Jerusalem, until they were moved to a safe-deposit box in Zurich for safe-keeping during the 1956 Suez crisis, until they were eventually released to the remaining family heirs. Kafka’s three sisters had been murdered in concentration camps and ownership had passed to their daughters, one of whom – Marianna Steiner – was living in England. Her son Michael happened to be studying in Oxford and was contacted by Malcom Pasley, Fellow in German at Magdalen College, who was aware of the unsatisfactory arrangements in Zürich. Pasley offered to mediate in negotiations with the Bodleian Library. Pasley oversaw the monumental task of producing a critical edition of Kafka’s works, including diaries and letters, starting with The Castle in 1982, and nearing completion with the final volume of letters due to be published in 2025. Building on this legacy, previous Professors of German Ritchie Robertson and Manfred Engel founded the Oxford Kafka Research Centre in 2008, creating a forum in which Kafka scholars from around the world have been able to consult the Bodleian’s holdings as well as meet to discuss his works at workshops, symposia, and conferences. The Kafka’s Transformative Community, project led by Carolin Duttlinger and Co-Investigators Katrin Kohl, Barry Murnane, and Ian Ellison, builds on this legacy and recently launched a new digital resource to enable Kafka scholars around world to exchange their work, the Global Kafka Network.
Oxford Kafka 2024
At the centre of the “Oxford Kafka 2024” campaign was the major exhibition Kafka: Making of an Icon, which was on display at the Weston Library from May through to November 2024. Free to visit and featuring materials from the Bodleian archives, including Kafka’s manuscripts, drawings, postcards, and private photographs, the exhibition was seen by tens of thousands of visitors. It also featured Andy Warhol’s original portrait of Kafka and contemporary artistic responses to his works, but some of the more personal items were the stars of the show, including items not previously on public display, like the so-called “Conversation Slips” that Kafka used to communicate on his deathbed, and the reunion of a page torn from the manuscript of The Castle with its original notebook for the first time since the 1920s. The exhibition gained national and international headlines, drawing media attention from Central Europe, Israel, East Asia, and North America. Oxford alumni in North America will have an opportunity to join in the celebrations when the exhibition will be on display at the Morgan Library in New York (from the end of November until April 2025).
To coincide with the centenary of Kafka’s death on 3 June, Bodley’s Librarian Richard Ovenden hosted “Oxford reads Kafka”, a day of public events culminating in a communal reading of The Metamorphosis in a sold-out Sheldonian Theatre involving academics (including Katrin Kohl, Barry Murnane, and the current Schwarz-Taylor Chair in German, Karen Leeder), students, and staff alongside actors and writers like Lemn Sissay, Hanif Kureishi and Ben Okri. Professor Leeder also curated a series of accompanying podcasts and performances, including a memorable production of Phala Ookeditse Phala’s Kafka’s Ape, performed by Tony Bonani Miyambo in The Old Fire Station on Gloucester Green.
Public lectures, symposia, schools events, and an ambitious programme of newly commissioned artistic responses to Kafka’s works took place over the summer. Highlights around Oxford and London included Arthur Pita’s A Hunger Artist and Kristin Scott-Thomas’s staged reading Deep Cuts, in partnership with Peckham-based group Bold Tendencies. Meanwhile a giant inflatable performance space co-designed with Bristol-based performance group Trigger, took over University Parks at the end of May, offering over 3000 visitors a temporary home for communal activities: celebrating Kafka’s work Metamorphosis, Jitterbug was an enormous 14 metre inflatable bug tent designed by Carl Robertshaw (Kylie Minogue, Stranger Things) in consultation with the Kafka’s Transformative Communities team. From talks, yoga and crafting to storytelling hosted by the Story Museum, a drag cabaret extravaganza in the evening, and an unforgettable performance by Melbourne-based chanteuse and international superstar, Meow Meow, Jitterbug was the setting for a programme of activities that truly was for all ages and audiences from all over the city.
Other collaborations have reached further afield: Kafka’s Transformative Communities collaborated with playwright Ed Harris to produce three new BBC Radio 4 audio-dramas available around the world on BBC sounds, Amerika, The Trial, and the prize-winning Franz and Felice. Likewise, Abacus Books published a book of 10 brand new stories inspired by Kafka’s work, A Cage Went in Search of a Bird, featuring major literary bestsellers and prize winners, including Ali Smith, Joshua Cohen, Elif Batuman, Naomi Alderman, Tommy Orange, Helen Oyeyemi, Keith Ridgway, Yiyun Li, Leone Ross and Charlie Kaufman. As this incredibly busy year of events slowly draws to a close, German at Oxford looks back on what has been an exciting opportunity for Modern Languages to reach such a wide audience. Through the Kafka’s Transformative Communities project, the relocation of Kafka: Making of an Icon to Manhattan, and a continuing programme of public engagement and artistic collaborations, “Oxford Kafka 2024” is only the start of many years of Kafka-related activity in the Faculty to come.