The myth of Franz Kafka, whose posthumous fame as a writer was seemingly bought with a largely unhappy life, is huge. But now Michael Kumpfmüller casts a bright, almost cheerful light on the famous poet and lovingly and discreetly portrays a man who finds great love in his last year and takes his life into his own hands before it is too late.

In the summer of 1923, Franz Kafka, a tuberculosis sufferer and poet known only to insiders, meets 25-year-old cook Dora Diamant at a Baltic seaside resort. And within a few weeks, he does what he never thought possible: He decides to live with a woman, sharing table and bed with Dora. In Berlin, in the midst of the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic, he ventures into life with her. Despite the daily price rises, the changing lodgings and his suspicious parents, Franz Kafka and Dora Diamant would never part, apart from a few days, until his death in June 1924.

Michael Kumpfmüller turns this true story into a subtle, gentle and knowledgeable romance novel. He knows Kafka's diaries, his letters and his last texts inside out and weaves them delicately into the narrative. But he devotes just as much attention to Dora's perspective, the young woman in love's view of her enigmatic, dying husband. And so Kumpfmüller succeeds in creating a deeply touching parable about life and love, writing and death. (Publisher)