Kafka was a Jewish subject of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, living in what he would have called Bohemia and regarded as a province. I have no idea whether he spo

Kafka was a Jewish subject of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, living in what he would have called Bohemia and regarded as a province. I have no idea whether he spoke Czech but I’d be astonished if his grandparents weren’t primarily Yiddish speakers. At his death he had been a citizen of Czechoslovakia for only six years, and German speakers were 1/4-1/3 of the Czechoslovak population. > Kafka, a Czech, wrote in German. Albert Camus, an Algerian, wrote in French. Seamus Heaney, an Irishman, wrote in English.