PRAGUE (EJP)---Two names, famous in the world of literature but rarely thought of relating one to the other, are those of the Jewish Prague-born Franz Kafka and Jorge Luis Borges, the most renowned and indeed eminent Argentinian man of letters.
Due however to the influence of the current Argentinian ambassador to the Czech Republic Juan-Eduardo Fleming, that relationship was formed when a number of academics from all over the world gathered last month in Prague at his invitation to attend the 1st Biennale "Kafka-Borges/Buenos Aires-Praha".
During the proceedings lecturers explained the connections...
Borges was apparently the first promoter of Kafka's work to the Spanish-speaking world and given his attraction to Judaism (it is sometimes rumored that his mother was of Jewish origin) it becomes easier to understand the relationship.
His feelings were so profound that one of his most renowned works was his Golem poem based on the history of Rabbi Loew to be followed by his Israel poems written at the time of the 1967 Six Day War and many essays.
Borges was also an expert on Kabbalah and he delved deeply into the symbols and rituals of Eastern European Jewry.
Although Kafka never actually mentioned any Jewish connections by name in his writing, everyone knew to whom he was referring in his works on isolation and desolation in an alien world, although in life he had many connections especially in the Jewish theatre.
His stories, despite their usual bleakness, are often spiced with an undeniable streak of wry humor found so frequently in Jewish literature.
Mysticism and "outsideness" are strong influences in Borges's story telling, which,in turn, have become "leitmotivs" in current South American literature, where the obvious is so often reversed to become not only banal but totally lacking in any intellectual merit and therefore boring, aspects hardly apparent in the writing of either Kafka or his brother in words, Borges himself.
What separates the two is the absence of Kafka's typically European-Jewish "angst" in Borges'work. There is of course anxiety and all the other forms of human misery, often self-inflicted, but the sunshine of the Latin countries compensates with the gift of "joie-de-vivre" (joy of living) so sadly lacking in the dark alleys of both the cities minds of Northern and Eastern Europe.
During May and June, Prague is celebrating the life and works of both literary giants with lectures, concerts, exhibitions and readings.