Franz Kafka (1883-1924)

In the opening of his "Metamorphosis" he captures man's neurotic self-absorbtion: "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant insect." So powerful is his surrealist imagery that "Kafkaesque" has entered the popular vocabulary to describe everything from the Holocaust to the incongruities of our daily lives. Only Proust and Joyce rival his impact on 20th century literature.