An amazing story about Franz Kafka’s legacy—a detective story that really happened. Kafka never intended to publish his works and left instructions to destroy them after his death to his best friend, Max Brod. Luckily for world literature, Brod recognized Kafka’s genius, still unknown to anyone at the time, and ultimately devoted the rest of his life to publishing those works.
But the truly gripping battle over the great writer’s legacy began with Max Brod’s death: by a twist of circumstances, two states that considered Kafka "their" writer fought for his works—Israel and Germany. In his fascinating investigation, journalist Benjamin Balint unravels the knot of legal, political, and ethical disputes, showing the reader a new side of the great Franz Kafka and the complicated fate of his writings.