Sirem, North Bohemia, Aug 19 (CTK) – A new exhibition on Prague-born Jewish German writer Franz Kafka (1883-1924) focused on his travelling has opened in Sirem village, where he stayed 100 years ago.
The permanent photographic exhibition shows less known sides of the writer. It presents him as a man in a good shape who liked rowing and preferred vegetarian diet.
Kafka arrived in Sirem in the summer of 1917 after he was diagnosed with tuberculosis.
“His relatives thought that he would choose some sanatorium, but he went to see his beloved sister Ottla who was running a farmstead in Sirem,” journalist Judita Matyasova, one of the display authors, told CTK.
She and photographer Jan Jindra were travelling to follow in the footsteps of Kafka for 14 years.
Kafka liked Sirem, the then German village, so much that he stayed there for eight months, which was the longest time he ever spent in the countryside.
Some literary historians are of the view that Sirem inspired Kafka’s novel The Castle (1926).
Kafka’s fans started visiting Sirem in the 1990s.
The new display is installed in a former oast of a farmstead. The first floor houses photographs taken during the trips of Matyasova and Jindra to the places where the writer stayed.
“This was a detective’s work. We were searching for how the sites looked like when Kafka visited them… and what he was doing there,” Matyasova said.
Works by young photography students inspired by Kafka’s short story The Burrow are displayed on another floor.
People can also visit the information centre near the church in Sirem to see old photographs of the village from the time when Kafka stayed there.
“(Former Czech president) Vaclav Havel also visited the village. He wanted to shoot a film inspired by Kafka’s novel The Castle together with Milos Forman,” Matyasova said.
The new exhibition is opened from 13:00 to 17:00 on weekends only.
A mini-brewery to make beer from a local hops sort might be opened nearby in the future, said David Herblich, whose parents own the farmstead where the Kafka display is situated.
