GREAT BOOKS 26: Franz Kafka (not the way you know him)

with Vivian Liska

Being arrested without ever being told why, or waking up to discover one has been transformed into a giant insect: these are the powerful images we have of Franz Kafka, a writer of existential despair who embarked on a futile quest for meaning in the 20th century. Vivian Liska, a widely published Professor of German Literature and Director of the Institute of Jewish Studies at the University of Antwerp, explains how Kafka is actually a writer of human connection who shows that we can create the fragile bonds needed to sustain community.

Liska calls Kafka a writer of exquisite faith in the human capacity of community and renewal, a champion of humor instead of despair, and a man of faith who foregoes all formal religion. 

Among Liska’s books are When Kafka Says We, Uncommon Communities in German-Jewish Literature and German-Jewish Thought and Its Afterlife.