Franz Kafka was born into a Jewish family in Prague in 1883. He earned a law degree in 1906 and worked for the Workers Accident Insurance company for most of his adult life. His writing was first published in 1909, and he continued to publish short stories, all written in German, until his death in 1924, shortly before his forty-first birthday. Kafka's literary style is best captured by the term, "Kafkaesque," which has gained broad circulation in common parlance. While this term can mean different things to different people, it is generally used to describe situations which evoke the dark, angstridden, claustrophobic, oppressive, and nightmarish mood of most of his stories.

One of the most significant influences on Kafka's life and work was his domineering father. Kafka's stories often contain themes drawn from the burden of his father's tyranny in his home life, depicting settings of confinement as well as...