Reflections

Author's name: Franz Kafka

Kafka viewed the writing he had adopted as his salvation as a personal matter of no concern to anyone. As soon as he put his feelings down on paper, he felt the need to destroy what he had written. The idea of ​​publishing what he had written never crossed his mind, were it not for his close friend Max Brod, who urged him to publish these small pieces of prose. Brod was also behind Kafka's agreement to collect 18 prose pieces under the title "Reflections" for the German publisher Kurt Wolff to publish as a book. However, Kafka, who was writing only to understand the phenomenon of his father's authoritarianism and human weakness in the face of this mysterious wall, was soon terrified by the idea of ​​his own book appearing. He wrote to the publisher: "If you return the manuscript to me, I would be very grateful!" The publisher was surprised. This was the first time in his life that such a powerful writer had asked him this, and he refused. When the book appeared in 1913, Kafka wrote: “Andrei’s bookstore sold eleven copies. I bought ten and would like to know who bought the eleventh.” Thus, “Reflections” entered history as the only book published during Kafka’s lifetime.