I recall reading The Trial in a class in world literature. In the story, Josef K., a bank officer, is arrested on his 30th birthday without a charge or explanation and all attempts to discover more about the reason for the arrest are futile. It ends badly and the reader is left bewildered and puzzled. Kafka exposes the nonsensical and absurd machinations of bureaucracies.
I became interested in Franz Kafka’ s biography. A family picture shows his parents as a large man and stoic woman in a loveless marriage that merely endured. Franz wrote a 47-page letter to his father but never delivered it. Mr. Kafka was a merchant who worshipped money and was a tyrant in his family. His dogged pursuit of wealth diminished his capacity for love or wholeness. Franz lost two brothers when they were infants and was keenly aware of his position in the family as the oldest son. He sought but never received love and approval from his father nor did he experience the joys of marriage and children even though he was engaged to the same woman twice. He was drained of energy and fortitude from a demanding and exacting job in insurance, and he succumbed to tuberculosis. His lifelong friend, Max Brod, published Kafka’s work posthumously even though Kafka had instructed Brod to destroy any remaining unpublished work.
Sources: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Franz-Kafka