Reading Kafka in Our Times

Credit By: DR. ABRAR ASAD SHAH

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• 04 Apr 2026

In the 21st century, new forms of power – from digital surveillance to algorithmic decision-making- have only made Kafka more relevant

More than a century after his death, Franz Kafka remains eerily contemporary. Few writers have captured the anxieties of modern life as precisely as this quiet, self-doubting clerk from Prague who published very little in his lifetime and asked for most of his writings to be burned after his death. Instead, his unfinished novels, strange parables, and haunting short stories have become central to world literature, and his name has entered common speech. To call a situation “Kafkaesque” is to say it is absurd, oppressive, and bewildering all at once.

Kafka was born in 1883 into a middle-class Jewish family in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He grew up at a crossroads of cultures and languages: German-speaking at home and in school, Czech all around him in the streets, and the traditions of Central European Jewry shaping his religious and cultural background. This layered identity would later echo in his fiction, where characters often feel caught between worlds, unable to belong fully to any side.

Despite his talents, Kafka did not lead the life of a celebrated author. He studied law, worked for an insurance company, and wrote mostly at night, struggling constantly with self-doubt, illness, and a demanding father whose expectations weighed heavily on him. Much of Kafka’s work was published only after his death in 1924, thanks to his close friend and literary executor Max Brod, who ignored Kafka’s instruction to destroy the manuscripts. What the world gained from this act of disobedience has been nothing short of remarkable.

Absurdity at the Heart of Power

Kafka’s fiction is not easy to summarise, yet it feels strangely familiar. His characters are usually ordinary people confronted with situations that are both impossible to understand and impossible to escape. In The Trial, Josef K. is arrested one morning without being told what crime he has committed. He spends the rest of the novel trying to find out why he is accused, struggling against an invisible and unaccountable legal system. In The Castle, a land surveyor known only as K. tries desperately to obtain recognition from the mysterious authorities who rule a village from a distant castle that never fully appears.

These stories seem far removed from everyday life, yet they echo the experiences of many in our bureaucratic age: standing in endless queues for permits, facing indifferent officials, or trying to navigate complex institutions that speak their own language and follow their own logic. Kafka’s worlds feel exaggerated but recognisable. The absurdity in his books reflects a deeper truth about modern power – that it often feels faceless, unreachable, and indifferent to the individual.

In many countries of the Global South, including India, citizens encounter a similar sense of helplessness when dealing with bureaucracy and authority. From applying for documents to seeking justice, people frequently face delays, confusion, and a lack of clear answers. Kafka’s vision of individuals crushed gently but steadily by systems they cannot understand resonates strongly in such contexts. His fiction is not simply European; it speaks to any society where power is distant and accountability is weak.

Alienation and the Fragile Self

Kafka’s most famous story, The Metamorphosis, begins with a sentence that has shocked generations of readers: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” The horror in this story is not only the transformation itself, but the reaction around it. Gregor’s family is more troubled by the inconvenience and embarrassment than by his suffering. Gradually, they push him further into isolation until he dies, forgotten and unwanted.

This tale can be read in many ways – as a portrait of disability, as a metaphor for mental illness, as a critique of a society that values individuals only for their economic usefulness. Whatever the interpretation, the story reveals a key theme in Kafka’s work: the fragility of human dignity in a world that constantly measures people by their productivity and conformity.

For readers in Kashmir and elsewhere, this sense of alienation may feel painfully close. Young people facing unemployment, families under stress, and individuals struggling with social or political pressures may easily identify with Gregor’s experience of being seen as a burden rather than a person. Kafka’s work reminds us that the deepest form of violence is sometimes not physical but emotional and social: the slow erasure of a person’s worth in the eyes of others.

The Language of Anxiety

Kafka writes in a calm, almost legal tone, but what he describes is full of nightmare. His sentences are clear, yet the situations they narrate are full of uncertainty. This contrast is one reason his stories are so unsettling. He does not use heavy symbolism or elaborate descriptions. Instead, he presents the absurd with a straight face and allows readers to feel the quiet panic beneath the surface.

This style has influenced countless writers and filmmakers across the world. Modern dystopian works that show oppressive systems, indifferent authorities, and powerless individuals often carry a trace of Kafka. Even beyond literature, the word “Kafkaesque” has become a shorthand for experiences where logic breaks down, rules shift without warning, and the individual is caught in a maze of procedures.

In the 21st century, new forms of power – from digital surveillance to algorithmic decision-making – have only made Kafka more relevant. Many people now face decisions about their lives made by computer systems they cannot see or question, from loan approvals to job screening. In such situations, the old question from The Trial returns with renewed force: how can a person defend themselves against an accusation or decision whose source and logic are hidden?

Faith, Guilt, and the Search for Meaning

Beneath the themes of bureaucracy and alienation lies another layer in Kafka’s writing: a deep preoccupation with guilt, responsibility, and the possibility of redemption. His characters often feel guilty without knowing exactly what they have done wrong. They seek explanations, but receive only partial answers or cryptic messages.

Some readers interpret this through a religious lens. Kafka, shaped by his Jewish background and the philosophical currents of his time, wrote stories that often feel like modern parables. In Before the Law, a short piece inserted into The Trial, a man seeks access to the Law but is never allowed to enter, despite waiting his whole life. The gatekeeper tells him at the end that the door was meant only for him, and is now being closed. The story leaves readers with uncomfortable questions about justice, opportunity, and the mystery of why some doors remain shut.

This combination of legal imagery and spiritual unease makes Kafka especially powerful for readers in societies wrestling with questions of justice and identity. His stories do not offer simple answers, but they push us to confront uncomfortable realities: the ways in which systems fail individuals, and the ways in which individuals sometimes accept that failure as fate.

Why Kafka Still Matters

In an age of quick news, short videos, and instant opinions, a writer like Kafka might seem distant. His works are demanding, often unfinished, and deeply unsettling. Yet it is precisely for these reasons that he remains vital.

Kafka teaches us to stay alert to the hidden workings of power, to notice the quiet forms of injustice that are sometimes more dangerous than open violence. He shows how easily human beings can be reduced to case numbers, files, or insects – and how urgently we need to defend the dignity of the individual. His fiction also reminds us that confusion and anxiety are not just private feelings but often the products of wider structures that deserve scrutiny.

For students, teachers, and general readers in Kashmir and beyond, reading Kafka can be an act of intellectual resistance. It trains us to question what appears normal, to see the absurdities in our own systems, and to ask whether what is presented as inevitable might in fact be changed.

Franz Kafka never lived to see the full horrors of the 20th century, yet his writing anticipated many of them. In the 21st century, as new forms of bureaucracy, surveillance, and alienation emerge, his voice continues to speak to us. To read Kafka today is to recognise that the struggle for clarity, justice, and dignity is far from over – and that literature still has the power to illuminate the dark corners of our shared modern condition.

(The Author is PhD in English Literature, Lecturer in HED)