This year we commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of the writer Franz Kafka. On this occasion, the Open House Prague organization prepared several thematic events. You can look forward to one of them at the beginning of next week. As part of a guided walk around Prague, you will learn in which places Kafka lived and created. Further events will follow in May.
One of the most famous of men of letters of the 20th century, a Jewish writer writing in German Franz Kafka, was closely connected with Prague all his life. Even a hundred years after his death, his charm can be seen in many places in the capital.
A walk called Kafka in the streets will take place on Monday 29/4/2024. at 4:30 p.m. You will walk through the streets, courtyards and secret passages of the Old Town, you will learn where Franz Kafka lived, created and met friends and other artists. You will also learn, for example, where little Franz went to school or where Milena Jesenská lived. The walk will be accompanied by short examples from the books of the German-writing minority of the time.
Another thematic event commemorating Franz Kafka will take place during the festival weekend on May 18 and 19 at the Goethe Institute. It will be available for viewing in the foyer an exhibition of unique photographs entitled Photo album of the Kafka family. You will find photos of the writer and his relatives, many of them they have never been published before. You can then view the entire art nouveau palace, including the basement sauna built in the days when the building served as the GDR embassy.
On Sunday, May 19, as part of the festival, you will be able to visit the New Jewish Cemetery, which is the largest in the Czech Republic. Except ceremonial halls and prayer rooms you can admire funeral works of famous Czech artists. Here you will find, among other things, grave of Franz Kafka by Leopold Ehrmann in the shape of a hexagonal crystal.
During the festival weekend, it will also be made available an opulent neo-baroque palace built at the end of the 19th century for the insurance company Assicurazioni Generali. The palace is known today under the name Forum and supposedly here the legendary writer worked as an employee of an insurance company.
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