Er ist das Maß”

This article explores the reception of Franz Kafka in two novels by the Czech writer, Libuše Moníková (1945–98). In Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin (1983) Moníková does battle with Kafka's legacy in order to assert her own literary presence. The next novel, Die Fassade (1987), testifies to her success in finding her own voice, but this did not mean holding Kafka in any less high regard: this work, whose central metaphor – a Bohemian castle – invokes Kafka directly, explores the view of Kafka's works with which Milan Kundera also engaged, namely that they anticipated the structures and absurdities of totalitarian rule. My reading of the literary encounter between Kafka and Moníková places it within its historical context, taking account both of Kafka's political significance in Czechoslovakia during the 1980s and of his popularity in the West. As a Czech from Prague and a trained Germanist working in the Federal Republic of Germany, Moníková was uniquely placed to appreciate both these aspects. I employ the concept of a minor literature, developed by Deleuze and Guattari to describe Kafka's work, in order to explore Moníková's similarly ambiguous place on the border between Czech and German culture

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• Kafka

  Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari et al.•New Literary History•1985

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