Franz Kafka is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential fiction writers of the early 20th century. Although few of his works were published during his lifetime, his literary contributions are now seen as major achievements in 20th-century literature.

Kafka's writing seamlessly blends elements of realism and the fantastic, often focusing on isolated protagonists in bizarre or surreal predicaments. His themes explore alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity, with his best-known works including the novella The Metamorphosis (1915) and the novels The Trial (1924) and The Castle (1926). The term "Kafkaesque" has entered the English language to describe absurd situations akin to those in his writing.

Born into a middle-class German- and Yiddish-speaking Czech Jewish family in Prague, Kafka was trained as a lawyer and worked full-time in legal and insurance positions, relegating writing to his spare time. Despite struggles with self-doubt leading him to burn much of his work, Kafka's remaining writings were published posthumously by his friend Max Brod, gaining influence in German literature and worldwide after World War II.

Kafka never married, though he was engaged to several women, and he had a notably strained relationship with his father. He died of tuberculosis in 1924, at the age of 40, relatively unknown.