Michael Kumpfmüller in B O D Y

In 1923 the 40 year-old Franz Kafka met the 25 year-old Dora Diamant at a Jewish vacation camp on the Baltic Sea. They fell in love and decided to move together to Berlin, though Kafka was already suffering from the tuberculosis that would kill him less than a year later.

Read an excerpt from Michael Kumpfmüller’s novel “The Glory of Life” translated from the German by Anthea Bell. The novel goes into their relationship, Kafka’s writing and the increasing turbulence in the German capital among other subjects.

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