Kafka´s Last Trial: The Case of Literary Legacy, Benjamin Balint

<p>Winner of the 2020 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature "Dramatic and illuminating…[R]aises momentous questions about nationality, religion, literature, and even the Holocaust." &amp;horbar;Adam Kirsch, The Atlantic</p> <p>When Franz Kafka died in 1924, his loyal friend Max Brod could not bring himself to fulfill Kafka’s last instruction: to burn his remaining manuscripts. Instead, Brod devoted his life to championing Kafka’s work, rescuing his legacy from both obscurity and physical destruction. Nearly a century later, an international legal battle erupted to determine which country could claim ownership: the Jewish state, where Kafka dreamed of living, or Germany, where Kafka’s three sisters perished in the Holocaust? Benjamin Balint offers a gripping account of the controversial trial in Israeli courts&amp;horbar;brimming with dilemmas legal, ethical, and political&amp;horbar;that determined the fate of Kafka’s manuscripts.</p> <p> </p>