Franz Kafka (German pronunciation: [ˈfʁants ˈkafka]; 3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a culturally influential German-language novelist. Contemporary critics and academics[who?] regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century. The term "Kafkaesque" has become part of the English vernacular.

Kafka was born to middle class German-speaking Jewish parents in Prague, Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The house in which he was born, on the Old Town Square next to Prague's Church of St Nicholas, now contains a permanent exhibition devoted to the author.

Most of Kafka's writing, much of it unfinished at the time of his death, was published posthumously.