New Franz Kafka papers discovered

Arts on the Air | 28.07.2010 | 16:30

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Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Kafka 's friend and literary executor Max Brod

More than 85 years after the death of famous Czech author Franz Kafka, new papers of his are being discovered. It is the result of a court case that has a plot worthy of the brilliant anxious writer himself.

Kafka penned some of the 20th century’s greatest novels and short-stories, centred on absurd nightmarish situations pitting a small man against a big brutal system, often in a courtroom.

Ten safety deposit boxes full of documents by Kafka and his friend and literary executor Max Brod are being opened on the orders of an Israeli court - -- four were opened in Switzerland last week, revealing illustrations and documents by Kafka -- with unconfirmed reports of a new short story, never before published, written in Kafka’s own hand.

Irris Makler reports from Jerusalem on the extraordinary personal story that kept these documents hidden for four decades.