The Franz Kafka Museum is a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make th ...

located in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

dedicated to the author

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typ ...

. The museum hosts a number of first edition Kafka books. All other exhibits like letters, diaries and drawings created by Kafka are

facsimile A facsimile (from Latin ''fac simile'', "to make alike") is a copy or reproduction of an old book, manuscript, map, art print, or other item of historical value that is as true to the original source as possible. It differs from other forms of ...

s, i.e. copies from archives and other collections. The museum is characterized as both literary and biographical.

History

The exhibit was first displayed in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

in 1999 in a three-part exhibition exploring famous authors' relationships to their cities. The Kafka exhibit was called "The City of K.: Franz Kafka in Prague" and the two other exhibits explored

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the Modernism, modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important ...

and

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

and

Fernando Pessoa Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa (; 13 June 1888 – 30 November 1935) was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher, and philosopher, described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and ...

and

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administrative limits w ...

. The Franz Kafka exhibition moved to New York City's Jewish Museum in 2002 before its permanent installment, which opened in the summer of 2005 in the Herget Brickworks building in the

Malá Strana Malá Strana (Czech for "Little Side (of the River)", ) or more formally Menší Město pražské () is a district of the city of Prague, Czech Republic, and one of its most historic neighbourhoods. In the Middle Ages, it was a dominant cente ...

district of

Exhibition

The exhibition features copies of manuscripts as well as photographs and personal documents, but no originals. It includes correspondence between Kafka and writer

Milena Jesenská Milena Jesenská (; 10 August 1896 – 17 May 1944) was a Czech journalist, writer, editor and translator. Early life Jesenská was born in Prague, Austria-Hungary (now Czech Republic). Her family is believed to descend from Jan Jesenius, ...

. Some of the explanatory texts are hardly readable, because they are located on transparent surfaces with exhibits in the same color as the letters. All texts are in English, some - mainly quotations - also in Czech and German. The impression therefore is that the museum is made mainly for foreign tourists rather than people from the Czech Republic. There are two permanent exhibitions: one explores Prague's influence on Kafka's work, and the other focuses on how Kafka describes Prague in his writing. The museum features strange and absurd design elements that are inspired by

's unusual ideas. The space is dark and has special elements such as a long, red-lit staircase and mysterious sound effects. Outside the museum is an exhibit called ''

Piss Piss is a profanity, swear word. Piss(es) or pissing may refer to: * Urine, a liquid by-product of the body that is secreted by the kidneys and excreted through the urethra ** Urination, the ejection of urine to the outside of the body * ''Piss' ...

'', a bronze fountain of two men urinating into a lake shaped like the Czech Republic. It was created by Czech sculptor

David Černý David Černý (born 15 December 1967) is a Czech sculptor. His works can be mainly seen in many locations in Prague. Early life Černý was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia. From 1988 to 1994 he studied at the Kurt Gebauer Studio at the Academy ...

in 2004.

External links

Official website
(available in Czech, English and German)
Kafka Museum – Lonely Planet

Kafka Museum – Official Prague tourist website

References

{{authority control Franz Kafka Museums in Prague