Franz Kaf­ka was born in 1883 in Prague, where he lived most of his life. Dur­ing his life­time, he pub­lished only a few short sto­ries, includ­ing ​“The Meta­mor­pho­sis,” ​“The Judg­ment,” and ​“The Stok­er.” He died in 1924, before com­plet­ing any of his full-length nov­els. At the end of his life, Kaf­ka asked his life­long friend and lit­er­ary execu­tor Max Brod to burn all his unpub­lished work. Brod over­rode those wishes.