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Before the Second World War, the Czech capital was home to several ethnic groups – the Czechs, the Germans, and the Jews. Their co-existence in the modern era was often a source of conflict that only deepened after the 1918 foundation of Czechoslovakia. The question of identity in the multi-ethnic environment posed considerable challenges for leading intellectuals of the time; among them was the Prague writer, journalist and composer Max Brod. In this edition of Czechs in History, we talk to the Prague-based French historian Gaelle Vassogne, the

An international conference on the Prague-born, German-speaking writer Franz Kafka will take place in Liblice, outside Prague, in October. The event will be held at the same venue as the historic Kafka conference which was held in 1963. The conference re-discovered Kafka’s work and paved the way for the Prague Spring of 1968. The theme of this year’s conference will be Kafka and Power; scholars will examine to what extent Kafka’s texts themselves go against repression and to what extent they helped spark opposition to the totalitarian regime.

An apartment in Tel Aviv might hold unknown documents that once belonged to the Prague-born Jewish author Franz Kafka, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Sunday. The papers are part of the inheritance Kafka left to his friend, Max Brod. After his death, the documents passed on to his secretary who wouldn’t let researchers examine them. But Brod’s former secretary died this year and Israeli researchers are hoping they might now gain access to the precious documents.

Throughout June, the Czech capital Prague is playing host to the ninth annual Nine Gates festival of Czech-German-Jewish culture. Nine Gates is a combination of music, theatre and literature of the period before the Second World War, when Prague was a multiethnic, multicultural city, most of whose inhabitants were comfortable speaking both Czech and German.

In today’s edition of the Arts we meet American scholar Kathi Diamant, who has spent years researching and writing about her namesake – Dora Diamant. Dora was a Polish émigré living in Berlin when she met Czech writer Franz Kafka for the first time in 1923. She became the great novelist’s last lover – spending the final eleven months of his life with him in a shared Berlin flat. Kathi Diamant has just written a book about Dora, titled ‘Kafka’s Last Love’. She spoke to Radio Prague’s Anna Kubišta about how she originally became interested in the

“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” The opening sentence of Franz Kafka’s story Metamorphosis is one of the most famous in world literature. But the writer himself will always be something of an enigma. Kafka was born in Prague in 1883 and spent nearly all his life in the city, dying at just 41 in a sanatorium near Vienna. A Kafka symposium was recently held in the Czech capital and one of the most interesting talks was given by the US-born Canadian academic, Anthony

Starting this Tuesday Prague is hosting a month-long biennale honouring the literary giants Jorge Luis Borges and Franz Kafka. Similar to a festival held in the capital in 2004, the biennale will focus on underlying themes in the authors’ work as well as their continuing impact.

The Franz Kafka Society based in Prague says it has completed the publishing of Franz Kafka's collected works in Czech translation. It is now putting out the final, thirteenth tome containing Kafka's private correspondence. Eighty-three years after Franz Kafka's death, Czech readers have for the first time a chance to read the complete works of the Prague-born German Jewish writer, one of the most influential 20th century authors, translated into the Czech language. The project took ten years to complete and six translators have participated in it, including Vojtech Saudek, Franz Kafka's great-nephew.

Tourist guides state that Mozart's spirit lives today in Prague, like Dvorak's in the Bohemian countryside. That other son of the country - Kafka... his spirit's alive and well too.

Haruki Murakami—perhaps the greatest living Japanese author—is currently here in the Czech capital. The main purpose of his visit is to collect the annual Franz Kafka award - which is perhaps appropriate, given that Murakami's own work bears the influence of Kafka, one of the greatest Prague-born writers of all time. Emily Udell reports.