Kafka Unchained: Returns beyond Biofiction

Abstract

Against the background of the 100th anniversary of Franz Kafka’s death, the article explores a branch of author-as-character fiction that escapes the generic restraints of biography and biofiction: unchained writer fiction. Using Steven Soderbergh’s film Kafka (1991), filmmaker Gil Kofman’s novel debut aKa (2023), and Haruki Murakami’s global bestseller Kafka on the Shore (2002/2005) as a provisional sample, different modes of unchaining Kafka from the fetters of biography and biofiction are brought to light and contrasted against each other.

Keywords

• author-as-character
• biofiction
• unchained writer fiction
• narratology
• intertextuality
• canon