Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
After he became a vegetarian, Kafka went to the Berlin Aquarium, stood in front of the tanks, looked at the fish and said (out loud), "Now at last I can look at you in peace. I don't eat you anymore."12
Not a single one of the six Kafka children lived a full, long life. Two of Franz's siblings died in infancy, and all three of Kafka's younger sisters were murdered in the Lodz and Auschwitz concentration camps during the Holocaust.13
Here's the schedule of Kafka's typical day during the years he was employed in the Workers Accident Insurance Institute. Kafka worked at his desk job from 8:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. He lunched until 3:30, slept until 7:30, exercised, and then joined his family for dinner. He started writing around 11 p.m. and kept at it "depending on my strength, inclination, and luck, until one, two, or three o'clock, once even till six in the morning." He then made "every imaginable effort to go to sleep" before leaving for the office again in the morning.14
Kafka's writings were banned in his native Prague during the communist regime. The ban was lifted in 1989.15
The writer has an asteroid named after him. Discovered in 1983, 3412 Kafka passes by Earth every 523 days.16
Kafka wrote his short story "The Judgment" in a single all-night burst of creativity on 22 September 1912.17
A researcher going through Kafka's papers at Oxford's Bodleian Library in 2008 was stunned to come across a rather large stash of porn. Yes, Kafka enjoyed naughty magazines. He kept the collection in a locked cabinet at his parents' house and took the key with him whenever he went on vacation.18