I Enjoy Seeing Pictures Of Him In Which He Looks Happy - Blog Posts

everyone who knows franz kafka probably has seen this photo of him, with him slightly smiling at the viewer, while remaining to look a bit lost. the picture was taken in 1908, making kafka 25 years old at the time.

but wait - the photo is cropped!

kafka is petting a dog! but there is more to this picture, it still remains cropped -

that's better, that's the one. it reveals kafka not only sitting next to a dog, but also a woman. the question remains - who is she?

the very happy looking woman is juliane "hansi" szokoll, a wine-bar-waitress, who was 22 years old when the photo was taken. not much is known about her relationship to kafka.

according to the german biographer and literary scholar rüdiger safranski, hansi was also a part-time sex-worker.

that would explain, where kafka might have met her - and also why she mostly was cropped out of the picture, to show kafka in the way, that people wanted him to see for a long time - innocent and somewhat mysterious.