"Kafka: The Decisive Years” by Reiner Stach – Portrait of a Fractured Life

In my personal opinion, Franz Kafka is one of the most interesting. original, talented and fascinating writers to ever pick up a pen. Those of you who have heard about him probably know him for The Trial, a very surrealistic story about the nightmare of bureaucracy. 

The most special aspect of his stories, at least according to me, is that he didn't really care about realism. In other words, the story was always a beautiful, vivid and though-provoking metaphor, allegory or parable that was meant to be taken in any sense but the literal one. 

The subjects he touched on and the ways in which he depicted them (sometimes horrifying, and at other times merely unsettling) is something only he could have done. Such an author deserves to be recognized, and that’s perhaps what Reiner Stach had in mind when he wrote Kafka: The Decisive Years, translated by Shelley Frisch.

Why is it called "The decisive years"? Well, Kafka had a period during his writing career, 1910 – 1915, where it is generally agreed-upon that he wrote his best works, and those include The Trial, The Man who Disappeared, The Judgment, The Metamorphosis, and my favorite parable of his, Before the Law (actually placed in the ninth chapter of The Trial).

It is fair to assume that Kafka had a lot going on in his life during those few years, and this book explores them all in an attempt to paint an accurate picture of what his life was like, which events marked him, and basically what he was thinking for those five years.

Kafka: The Decisive Years by Reiner Stach (Book cover)
I have to say that I was quite surprised at the amount of material in this book… some authors would have complete biographies that are shorter and less interesting than these five years from Kafka’s life. 

We get to see not only where the inspiration for his writings came from, but we also get to dive inside of his head, see his thoughts on Zionism (he became fascinated by it during those years), the impact his harrowing engagement to Felice Bauer had on him, how he perceived the First World War, what bureaucracy meant to him, and more.

The information in the book is gathered from countless journal pages, letters, and even unseen fragments of his literature, all of which have been collected and analyzed over ten years. If you would like to learn more about the kind of person Kafka was and what happened to him during his best years, this should be the definitive source for you.

Reiner Stach (Author)

Reiner Stach


Personal site

Reiner Stach is a German writer, publisher, publicist, and the biographer of the legendary Franz Kafka, a life that was laid out in the books Kafka: The Decisive Years and Kafka: The Years of Realization.

In 1991 he was the winner of a writing competition hosted by Botho Strauss, in 2003 was awarded the Cultural Award of the Regional Association of Osnabruck Land, and in 2008 the special prize of the Heimoto von Doderer-Literaturpreis.


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