Michael Kumpfmüller

Michael Kumpfmüller is the author of bestselling novel Hampels Fluchten (The Adventures of a Bed Salesman), the satirical elegy of a restless person, and he recently won the Döblin Prize for Nachricht an alle (Message to All). In his latest book, he has ventured to make inroads into territory that is extremely controversial in literary history. And he provokes sceptical questions, such as whether Franz Kafka’s last year of life can be narrated in the way that Martin Walser wrote about the ageing Goethe of the Marienbader Elegie. Is Kafka already generally available – an antique of literary history? Or do not his magic coldness and his style, brutally devoid of ornamentation of any kind, still forbid one from copying him, let alone retelling him? (…) The courageous empathy with which Kumpfmüller writes of Kafka’s death throes and of Dora Diamant’s lifelong loyalty is impressive. Kumpfmüller tends to gather rather than unfurl existing accounts, hinting at the atmosphere of an epochal loss of which one can as yet have only a vague inkling. And is not arrogance a contributing factor to Kafka’s posthumous fame and global impact? Does not all understanding stem from arrogance and transgressions? We do not learn more about Kafka from Kumpfmüller’s book, but we learn to live with him.

Dieter Hildebrandt: „Dora und der Tod“
© Die ZEIT, 25 August 2011

Michael Kumpfmüller
Die Herrlichkeit des Lebens
Kiepenheuer & Witsch Verlag, Cologne, 2011
ISBN 978-3-462-04326-6