Photo: Zdeněk Fiedler, Wikimedia Commons
Frýdlant, a town of about 7,400 inhabitants in Czechia’s Liberec Region, certainly has a Kafkaesque feeling about it. You arrive there only to find that the people you arranged to interview suddenly don’t have time to meet you, saying they are sure that one day, however, one day you will meet – uncannily reminiscent of Kafka’s unfinished last novel ‘The Castle’, where the protagonist desperately tries to gain access to the fortress where the mysterious authorities who govern the village he has been summoned to reside.
The castle from Kafka’s story could indeed have been the one in Frýdlant – although there is unfortunately no proof that it was Frýdlant’s castle that inspired Kafka to write the novel. In fact, the village of Siřem, around 160km away, which will be the subject of our next episode on Kafka, also claims the same accolade.
Kafka regularly came to Frýdlant for his job as a labour safety inspector at the Worker’s Accident Insurance Institute, and would stay at the White Horse (Bílý kůň) Hotel, located on a square dominated by the impressive German-style town hall.
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Authors: Libor Kukal, Anna Fodor