Kafka earned a law degree and worked for an insurance firm while writing mostly short fiction on the side. He began publishing in 1907, but what are now considered his major works appeared posthumously.

His short stories and essays, such as The Metamorphosis (1915), appeared in his lifetime, but his three unfinished novels were published posthumously (against his wishes) by his friend Max Brod.

Kafka is renowned for visionary and profoundly enigmatic stories that often presents a grotesque vision of the world in which individuals burdened with guilt, isolation, and anxiety make a futile search for personal salvation. His complex and impersonal stories are so unique that his name inspired an adjective - Kafkaesque.

Kafkaesque refers to anything suggestive of Kafka, especially his nightmarish type of narration, in which characters lack a clear course of action, the ability to see beyond immediate events, and the possibility of escape. The term's meaning has transcended the literary realm to apply to real-life occurrences and situations that are incomprehensibly complex, bizarre, or illogical.

Kafka wrote 3 novels: The Trial, The Castle and America along with few novellas and short stories. His most famous work is The Metamorphosis.