Professor David Peimer
Kafka: A Prophet of his Time
Summary
Professor David Peimer discusses the life and work of Franz Kafka (1883–1924) and why he thinks he’s one of the most significant writers in history.
Professor David Peimer
David Peimer is a professor of theatre and performance studies in the UK. He has taught at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and New York University (Global Division), and was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University. Born in South Africa, David has won numerous awards for playwriting and directing. He has written eleven plays and directed forty in places like South Africa, New York, Brussels, London, Berlin, Zulu Kingdom, Athens, and more. His writing has been published widely and he is the editor of Armed Response: Plays from South Africa (2009) and the interactive digital book Theatre in the Camps (2012). He is on the board of the Pinter Centre in London.
I think absolutely. And Brod says that Kafka said, okay, burn all my books. But he never put it in his will. And he knew he was dying, he had TB. So Brod brought this out later and said, well, it was never written, it was just told to me. And I think Max Brod did a fantastic thing. ‘Cause Brod in other interviews says, Kafka, he thought always would’ve loved his … That he, you know, had this impulsive reaction, burn it all. I think we’ve, and I think the world would be much poorer without Kafka’s work.
As I’ve tried to mention, I think that what he called the triple dimension to his life, he’s German speaking, he’s in Prague, and he’s Jewish, and he loves literature, or what we might call in the phrase of today, classic alienation and anxiety. You know, he’s on the margin. He’s an outsider, triple outsider, completely, I think hugely. He has a bar mitzvah, in a religious, fairly religious, not over religious, but you know, minimally religious family. I think it contributes hugely. You know, he reads Hebrew, he learns Hebrew, he goes to Yiddish theater. Most of his friends were Jewish. He’s very close friends and he knows the Bible stories, how to write parables, et cetera. I think hugely. But I wanted to keep that perhaps for another lecture entirely.