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This eagerly anticipated third and final volume of Reiner Stach´s definitive biography of the writer answers that question with more facts and insight than ever before, describing the complex personal, political, and cultural circumstances that shaped the young Franz Kafka (1883 - 1924). It tells the story of the years from his birth in Prague to the beginning of his professional and literary career in 1910, taking the reader up to just before the breakthrough that resulted in his first masterpieces, including "The Metamorphosis." Brimming with vivid and often startling details, Stach´s narrative invites readers deep inside this neglected period of Kafka´s life. The book´s richly atmospheric portrait of his German Jewish merchant family and his education, psychological development, and sexual maturation draws on numerous sources, some still unpublished, including family letters, schoolmates´ memoirs, and early diaries of his close friend Max Brod.

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"Stach often does quietly brilliant work connecting known details of Kafka´s youth to the older Kafka, so the reader can see how events appear (or don´t) in the specific subjectivity of Kafka´s recollection."--Rivka Galchen, London Review of Books

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Reiner Stach worked extensively on the definitive edition of Kafka´s collected works before embarking on his three-volume biography of the writer. The other volumes are Kafka: The Decisive Years and Kafka: The Years of Insight (both Princeton). Shelley Frisch´s translations of those volumes were awarded the Modern Language Association´s Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize and the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator´s Prize. Her many other translations from the German include Karin Wieland´s Dietrich & Riefenstahl, a finalist for the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award.

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