A novel about Felice Bauer, Franz Kafka’s first fiancée, with author Magdaléna Platzová and translator Alex Zucker in conversation

2024 marks the 100th anniversary of the death of writer Franz Kafka. As we celebrate Kafka’s life and work this fall, join us for a book talk with author Magdaléna Platzová and translator Alex Zucker about Platzová’s novel ‘Life After Kafka,’ moderated by Irena Čajková. The discussion will be followed by a reception.

Franz Kafka scholars know Felice Bauer, his onetime fiancée, through his ‘Letters to Felice,’ as little more than a woman with a raucous laugh and a taste for bourgeois comforts. ‘Life After Kafka’ is her story. The novel begins in 1935 as Felice flees with her children from Hitler’s Berlin, following her family and members of Kafka’s entourage—including Grete Bloch, Max Brod, and Salman Schocken—as they try to escape the horrors of the Holocaust. Years later, a man claiming to be Kafka’s son approaches Felice’s son in Manhattan and the drama surrounding Kafka’s letters to Felice begins.

While taking the measure of literary fame’s long shadow, ‘Life After Kafka’ depicts the magic and poison of memories, and what we cling to when all else is lost. Most of all, it illuminates the bravery required to move forward through the shattered remains of one world to rebuild life in a new one.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Magdaléna Platzová is the author of nine books, including three novels published in English: ‘Aaron’s Leap,’ a Lidové Noviny Book of the Year Award finalist, ‘The Attempt,’ longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and a Czech Book Award finalist, and ‘Life After Kafka,’ a Magnesia Litera award finalist. Her fiction has also appeared in A Public Space and Words Without Borders. Platzová grew up in the Czech Republic; studied in Washington, DC, and England; received her MA in Philosophy at Charles University in Prague; and has taught at New York University’s Gallatin School. She is now based in Lyon, France.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Alex Zucker is the award-winning translator of several books by Czech authors. Among other honors, he has received the American Literary Translators Association’s National Translation Award, two English PEN Translates awards, and a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship. His recent translation of Bianca Bellová’s ‘The Lake’ was the winner of the EBRD Literature Prize, and his translation of Magdaléna Platzová’s ‘The Attempt’ was longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award. Zucker is a former cochair of the PEN America Translation Committee and has collaborated with the Authors Guild on many projects, including its first model contract for literary translation. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

This event is presented in collaboration with the Consulate General of the Czech Republic in Chicago, the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago, and the Masaryk Club at the University of Chicago.

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Tags: Alex Zucker, Book Talk Life After Kafka, Felice Bauer, Franz Kafka, Goethe-Institut Chicago, Magdaléna Platzová