page_title: Max Brod
section_title: Literary career
hierarchical_section_title: Max Brod / Literary career
caption_attribution_description: Leipzig, ehem. Sitz des Kurt Wolff Verlags, Gedenktafel
context_page_description: Max Brod was a German-speaking Jewish, later Israeli, author, composer, and journalist. Although he was a prolific writer in his own right, he is best remembered as the friend and biographer of writer Franz Kafka. Kafka named Brod as his literary executor, instructing Brod to burn his unpublished work upon his death. Brod refused and had Kafka's works published instead.
context_section_description: Unlike Kafka, Brod rapidly became a prolific, successful published writer who eventually published 83 titles. His first novel and fourth book overall, Schloss Nornepygge (Nornepygge Castle), published in 1908 when he was only 24, was celebrated in Berlin literary circles as a masterpiece of expressionism. This and other works made Brod a well-known personality in German-language literature. In 1913, together with Weltsch, he published the work Anschauung und Begriff which made him more famous in Berlin and also in Leipzig, where their publisher Kurt Wolff worked.
  He promoted other writers and musicians. Among his protégés was Franz Werfel, whom he would later fall out with as Werfel abandoned Judaism for Christianity. He would also write at various times both for and against Karl Kraus, a convert from Judaism to Roman Catholicism. His critical endorsement would be crucial to the popularity of Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Svejk, and he played a crucial role in the diffusion of Leoš Janáček's operas.
caption: Memorial Plaque in Leipzig. Kurt Wolff and his authors
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