Franz Kafka papers should be made public, Israeli judge rules

An Israeli judge overseeing a tussle over papers that once belonged to the author Franz Kafka has ruled that details of the documents should be made public. The literary world now awaits previously unpublished works emerging from boxes containing manuscripts, letters and journals written by the Czech author and his adviser and friend Max Brod. According to the newspaper Haaretz, the items include a handwritten short story by Kafka that has never been seen by the public. More boxes have yet to be opened, it reported. Eva Hoffe and Ruti Wisler had sought a gagging order over the documents, arguing that their own dignity and privacy would be threatened if the contents were revealed. But Talia Koppelman, a judge at Tel Aviv's family court, rejected the legal move. The now elderly sisters inherited the archive from their mother, Brod's secretary, Esther Hoffe. Details of the papers stored in Tel Aviv and Zurich are now due to be published. The decision is a victory for the National Library of Israel and for Kafka scholars around the world, who had long pressed to see the documents. In a statement today, the library stated it was pleased that "at long last Dr Max Brod's last known will is beginning to be executed". Kafka asked Brod to destroy the papers after his death, but Brod defied his wish, taking them with him to Israel in 1939. They were inherited by his secretary after his death, who then passed them on to her daughters.