A century after his death Franz Kafka is still in the zeitgeist

Franz Kafka was not a social person: he spent much of his time alone, trying, and often failing, to write. But on social media he is a hit. #Kafka posts on TikTok have been viewed around 2bn times. Users—particularly young women—swoon over his soulful letters to Milena, his on-again, off-again paramour. Kafka is “the OG lover boy”, reads a caption, below a video of a girl with a T-shirt that says “Reading is sexy”. Other posts dissect his toxic relationship with his father, immortalised in a letter, never delivered, in which Kafka blamed him for being emotionally abusive.