Franz Kafka, the Jewish Patient - Paperback

by Sander Gilman (Author)

This is the first book about Kafka that uses the writer's medical records. Gillman explores the relation of the body to cultural myths, and brings a unique and fascinating perspective to Kafka's life and writings.

Back Jacket

This is a book of many firsts--the first wide-ranging study of Kafka from the standpoint of the history of the body; the first attempt to understand Kafka's writing through turn-of-the-century discourse about the Jewish body; the first attempt to write a history of the period's debates about ritual slaughter and animal rights; and the first attempt to relate nineteenth-century myths about Jewishness and illness to the treatment of Jews in the Holocaust.