Franz Kafka was a German-language novelist born in 1883 in Prague who is considered one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Some of his most famous works include The Metamorphosis, The Trial, and The Castle. He worked as a lawyer but struggled with his writing career and health, eventually dying of tuberculosis in 1924 at the age of 40. Despite asking his friend Max Brod to destroy his unpublished works, Brod went against his wishes and published many of them after his death, helping to establish Kafka as one of the most important authors of modern literature.