I really enjoyed this bio. Unfortunately my copy was very used and progressively fell apart as I neared the end. Would like to buy a decent (whole) copy for keeps.

Kafka lives again through choice selections from his private writings and letters, organized chronologically and put into historical context. This book is a beloved companion on those nights of bleakest despair. As good as Kierkegaard's diaries.

This is the best biography of Kafka available in the English language. It is not a starchy academic biography removed from the living currents of an author's life. Pawel understood all the factors in fin de siecle Prague that combined to produce the century's greatest writer. This biography concentrates on everything that was vital to Kafka's background, from his anguished relationship with his father to his private yearning for the tradition of his ancesstors. That this book has been allowed to go out of print is a shame.

This book turns into a wonderful memoir about the 1930s and 1940s, written with (I think) considerable warmth and humor. Anyone interested in schools and teaching should look at the sections dealing with Pawel's experiences in Belgrade (as a student), and North Africa (as a teacher, in a wildly improvised school). One caveat: the first chapter is - although well written - basically about death, and heavily depressing. Get past the meditations about illness, and you'll find that the story picks up.

Pawel attempts and largely succeeds at placing Herzl and the Zionist movement in its historical and cultural setting. He thoroughly and without sentiment unveils the conflicts and crises that drove Herzl to become the international leader of Zionism. The rise of Jewish nationalist sentiment and the personalities involved in its emergence are well presented. I especially enjoyed the depiction of the Vienna of Herzl's era. I recommend it for readers with an interest in the origins of the Zionist movement and its uniquely gifted leader, Theodor Herzl.