What Kafka Saw: Drawings and Diaries [talk]

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Join us for a conversation about Franz Kafka’s extraordinary sensitivity to his visual world, with translator Ross Benjamin and art historians Marie Rakušanová and Nicholas Sawicki, moderated by Merve Emre.

What drew Kafka’s attention as he moved through his native Prague—visiting its cafés, theaters, galleries, and cinemas, and taking in its shifting urban landscape in the early 20th century? What distinct ways of observing did he cultivate, and how did this come through in his writings and in the recently rediscovered drawings he made over the course of his life? Through images and discussion, we’ll consider what Kafka saw, how he looked at people, places, and things, and what this reveals.

Ross Benjamin is the award-winning translator of The Diaries of Franz Kafka (Schocken Books, 2023). Marie Rakušanová (Charles University) and Nicholas Sawicki (Lehigh University) are the authors of Through the Eyes of Franz Kafka: Between Image and Language (Prague: Kant, 2024), which includes essays by Marek Nekula (University of Regensburg) and curators Alexander Klee and Miro Halak (Belvedere Museum). Author, scholar, and critic Merve Emre is the Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University and contributing writer at The New Yorker.

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Print copies of The Diaries of Franz Kafka and Through the Eyes of Franz Kafka: Between Image and Language will both be available for purchase and signing before and after the event.

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