Lovers of Franz K.

An inventive literary obituary for Kafka, this thriller of love and revenge brings the Cold War to life, from Paris and Istanbul to West Berlin and Tel Aviv.

Amid the student protests in 1960s Europe, Kafka’s best friend, Max Brod, becomes a target of their ire: Against the dying writer’s wishes, he had published texts that never should have been part of his legacy. After Brod is injured in an attempted assassination, assailant Ferdy Kaplan is captured and questioned by Commissioner Müller of the West Berlin police.

As his interrogation progresses, through dialogues in the police station, the courtroom, and the prison, Kaplan’s background is revealed piece by piece, from the love story between him and his childhood friend Amalya, to their shared passion for Kafka, which leads them to join a radical group. But when a shocking discovery is made about the person who ultimately set Brod’s attempted murder in motion, Kaplan and Müller agree to work together to expose the truth.

In this gripping, thought-provoking tribute to Kafka, Burhan Sönmez vividly recreates a key period of history when the Berlin Wall divided Europe, and women were fighting for freedom and against tradition, adopting Jean Seberg’s iconic short haircut from Breathless. More than a typical mystery, Lovers of Franz K. is a brilliant exploration of the value of books, and the issues of anti-Semitism, immigration, and violence that recur in Kafka’s life and writings.

Burhan Sönmez is the author of five novels, which have been published in more than thirty languages. He was born in Turkey and grew up speaking Turkish and Kurdish. He worked as a lawyer in Istanbul before going into political exile in Britain. Sönmez’s writing has appeared in such publications as The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, and La Repubblica. His previous novels include Labyrinth (Other Press, 2019) and Stone and Shadow (Other Press, 2023). He was elected President of PEN International in 2021.

Samî Hêzil is a writer and translator from northern Kurdistan. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English language and literature, and has been translating literary and scientific works from English into Kurdish since 2000. His short stories and scholarly articles in Kurdish have been published by a variety of literary publications. He teaches Kurdish literature at Kurdî-Der (The Kurdish Language Association) in Van, Turkey.