or of The Metamorphosis and The Trial--one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century--provide a penetrating look into Prague and the life and dreams of one of the most important writers of the twentieth century.

These diaries cover the years 1910 to 1923, the year before Kafka's death at the age of forty. They provide a look into Kafka's accounts of his dreams, his feelings for the father he worshipped and the woman he could not bring himself to marry, his sense of guilt, and his feelings of being an outcast. They offer an account of a life of almost unbearable intensity.