The "Kafka 2024" festival

The life of Franz Kafka offers numerous entry points to German, Czech and Austrian history of the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as to the art and culture of these three countries.  For this reason, "Kafka 2024" was predestined to bring together a wide variety of institutions and key individuals from the Czech Republic, Austria, and Germany in order to look at Kafka's life and work from current and emerging perspectives.

The "Kafka 2024" project was initiated and coordinated by the Adalbert Stifter Association and is under the patronage of the Czech Minister of Culture and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. The aim is also to draw attention to German-Czech cultural heritage, and the mutual exchange and influence of both cultures and nations up to the present day. A huge and diverse range of topics relating to the life and work of Kafka will be examined and discussed. Biographical details and personal decisions and experiences of the writer will also be explored, from his vegetarian diet to his experiences of anti-Semitism. The spectrum of events that will take place throughout the year at numerous locations in the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, France, and Switzerland is correspondingly broad: It ranges from exhibitions, concerts, theater performances and film screenings to panel discussions, lectures, readings, and workshops. The festival website kafka2024.de is the central guide and link to all events. In addition to the program, it also features a blog and further information on offers and projects related to the centenary year. 

The aim of "Kafka 2024" is to give as many people as possible the opportunity to explore Kafka's work and discover their own way into his work and to him as a person. Incidentally, you can also find a short film clip on Copernico that features Franz Kafka himself and discusses how he found a pathway to his own unique literary language. Click here for the video: "Kafka's language(s)".