Gustav Janouch was born in Maribor (Slovenia) in 1903 and died in Prague in 1968. He was a poet and musicologist, but above all he became known for his friendship with Franz Kafka. Short biography
Gustav Janouch is known mainly for his scrapbook "Conversations with Kafka", written from his friendship with the great Czech writer. The origin of his friendship dates back to 1920, when Janouch was 16 and Kafka, 37. Janouch's father and Franz Kafka were co-workers at the Prague Work Accident Insurance Institute, and the young Janouch had free access to the office of Kafka from the moment in which his father introduced him to him. Kafka's death four years later coincided in time with the suicide of Janouch's father. Both events, as well as his participation in World War II as a resister and his subsequent imprisonment, contributed to the psychic and moral decline of his later years. Nevertheless, he lived long enough to see published the definitive edition of his book of memories about Kafka, whom he presents as the main moral of his existence. Other works by Janouch are "The Blues of Death" and "Meetings in Prague".
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