"The present is ghostly"

May 29, 2024 – January 12, 2024

To mark the centenary of the death of Franz Kafka (1883-1924), the Literature Museum of the Austrian National Library is dedicating a special foyer exhibition to him from May 29 to December 31, 2024. Kafka, who was born in Prague and died in Kierling, Klosterneuburg, is still one of the most enigmatic figures of modern literature. His multi-layered oeuvre contributed to the creation of the myths surrounding him, as did his request that his friend and estate administrator Max Brod should destroy his work after his death. The novels were nevertheless published posthumously, and have become classics of world literature and continue to the present to inspire artists to adapt them. Kafka's letters and diaries are also fascinating, providing grotesque insights into the turbulent thoughts of an ambivalent personality. Nicolas Mahler, comic artist and artistic director of the Vienna Poetry School, has drawn on this material to create the present exhibition, transferring Kafka's tragicomic abysses to the comic format.