“This tremendous world I have inside of me. How to free myself, and this world, without tearing myself to pieces. And rather tear myself to a thousand pieces than be buried with this world within me.”

Franz Kafka was a Czech-German writer of the early 20th century. His surreal, existential works—including *The Metamorphosis* and *The Trial*—explore alienation, bureaucracy, and the absurdity of modern life. The term "Kafkaesque" now describes oppressive, labyrinthine systems.