Born on July 3, 1883 in Prague, Franz Kafka was the son of a wealthy Jewish merchant. 1901-1906 he studied German and law in Prague. His relationship with women was difficult: he got engaged twice in 1914 and broke off the engagement. In 1917 he fell ill with tuberculosis, which forced him to give up his job in 1922. From 1923 on, he lived as a freelance writer in Berlin and Vienna, most recently in the Kierlang sanatorium near Vienna, where he died of larynx tuberculosis on June 3, 1924.