Kafka’s Other Prague

“This book fills an important gap in Kafka scholarship by focusing on the Czech influence in his work. It is a significant contribution to the study of Kafka, modernism, and Central Europe; furthermore, it is an enjoyable and insightful read.” ​—Charles Sabatos, translator of Pavel Vilikovský’s Ever Green Is . . . Selected Prose

"Anne Jamison has written a masterful study of the interplay of Czech and German in Kafka's political, social and cultural worlds. Long the blind spot of mainstream Kafka research, the question of the dominant language and culture in Kafka's Other Prague receives illuminating treatment in Jamison's study. Most of Kafka's major interpreters have not known Czech at all or well enough to assess its importance for Kafka's writing, a problem compounded by the lack of access to Czech archival material during the postwar Communist period. Jamison combines astute close readings of Kafka's literary and personal writings with detailed knowledge of the Czech language, society and culture. The result is a mesmerizing portrait that shows us how close textual reading brings us closer to, not farther from, Kafka's social and political worlds. An instant classic." —Mark Anderson, author of Kafka’s Clothes: Ornament and Aestheticism in the Habsburg Fin de Siècle

"The myriad connections that Kafka's Other Prague draws between Kafka's 'world and his writings' not only provide fertile ground for future studies on language, identity, and territory in Kafka, they also provide a valuable resource for those teaching semester-length courses on Kafka." —Anna Alber, German Studies Review