Kafka has probably been misunderstood for decades. He was a stereotypical single academic who found it a struggle to combine his job, daily life and love. But even that battle he found amusing as his letters show. In a tribute in Die Welt, Kafka is even compared to that other great artist known for his comic and melancholic ways, Charlie Chaplin.

Kafka's friend, Max Brod, talked of how Kafka found humour in his dark works - especially the chilling "The Trial", which he thought a hoot, laughing so hard while reading the first chapter aloud, that he repeatedly had to stop to collect himself.