Max Brod

Born in Prague, Austria-Hungary on 27 May, 1884, Max Brod had an extensive writing career between 1908 and 1965 with more than 80 works published, ranging from fiction to plays, biographies and one appearance as an actor in the silent film Die Strecke (1927). However, Brod has a special place in history not simply because of his works but above all, for spreading the words, the intelligence and wisdom of one of the greatest minds of the 20th century, his friend Franz Kafka. Kafka & Brod first met in 1902 and developed a great friendship with the Czech author, both regular presences on the literary circles of Germany. At the time Kafka had a work on an insurance agency and he was very insecure of his own writing, never publishing and never trying to establish himself as a professional writer. On the other hand, Brod (a law student working on civil services and frequently involved with the literary world and social/political causes) always kept encouraging Kafka to publish everything, telling how brilliant and special his writings were but the friend asked the man to destroy and burn all of his works in case of his death, quite near due to his constant poor health. Kafka died in 1924, and his memorable literary works such as "The Trial", "The Metamorphosis", "A Hunger Artist", "The Castle" were all posthumously published thanks to Max Brod, who acted as administrator of the Kafka estate. The genius of Kafka's works is that it reveals life and reality as an existentialist process of endless suffering, questions without answers, dark sense of humor, nihilism and thoughts that were very on the current wave of its time in the early years of the 20th century, which Brod easily perceived as mandatory works to see the light of day and conquer audiences. By not keeping his promise to Kafka, Brod gave to the world of arts important pieces of reflection and inspiration. Like Kafka, he was a Czech of Jewish decent (and both always wrote their productions in the German language) and along with his wife Elsa Taussig he fled from Prague when the Nazis took over power in the late 1930's. They moved to Palestine but by that time Max wasn't producing much works. He died on 20 December, 1968, in Tel Aviv, Israel.