It seems almost Kafkaesque: Ten safety deposit boxes of never-published writings by Franz Kafka, their exact contents unknown, are trapped in courts and bureaucracy, much like one of the nightmarish visions created by the author himself.
The papers, retrieved from bank vaults where they have sat untouched and unread for decades, could shed new light on one of literature’s darkest figures.
In the past week, the pages have been pulled from safety deposit boxes in Tel Aviv and Zurich, Switzerland, on the order of an Israeli court over the objections of two elderly women who claim to have inherited them from their mother.
“Kafka could easily have written a story like this, where you try to do something and it all goes wrong and everything remains unresolved,” said Sara Loeb, an author of two books about the writer. “It’s really a case of life imitating art.”
Literary experts in both cities are sifting through the boxes, and the contents are expected to be of priceless literary and monetary value.
Kafka was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, known for his surreal tales of everyman protagonists crushed by mysterious authorities or twisted by unknown shames.
But the newly emerged writings won’t see the light of day until the Israeli court unravels the tangled question of the collection’s rightful owner.
The case boils down to the interpretation of the will of Max Brod, Kafka’s longtime friend. Kafka bequeathed his writings to Brod shortly before his death in 1924, instructing his friend to burn everything unread.
Brod ignored Kafka’s wishes and published most of what was in his possession.
But Brod, who smuggled some of the manuscripts to pre-state Israel when he fled the Nazis in 1938, didn’t publish everything.
Upon his death in 1968, Brod left his personal secretary, Esther Hoffe, in charge of his literary estate and instructed her to transfer the Kafka papers to an academic institution.
Instead, for the next four decades, Hoffe kept the papers in her Tel Aviv apartment and in safety deposit boxes in Tel Aviv and Zurich banks.
When Hoffe died three years ago, she left the collection to her two daughters, Eva Hoffe and Ruth Wiesler.
But the Israeli National Library has long claimed the papers, saying Brod intended for the collection to end up in its hands. It filed an injunction against the execution of Hoffe’s will.
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