I don't think kafka changed anything in literature. and I don't like his books

If the primates that we came from had known that someday politicians would come out of the gene pool, they'd stayed up in the trees and written evolution off as a bad idea.

I'm studying German literature at university and there are so many different oppinions about Kafka. But there's also one fact we can agree in: Even if Kafka didn't change the world literature he showed one of many new ways of how to understand (or how to not understand) writers, just because he understood the readers. He just didn't give in to the readers interessest in sense making story. That's what makes him big!

I read his book The Trial many years ago and I didn't really like it at the time.

i love Kafka.

I dont think that any single writer can claim to have changed world literature.
Many had a great impact and I would call for Franz Kafka to have been one of them. It is understandable opinions are diverging. He tells his stories in a surrealistic way that is angled to reality, not unlike a surrealistic painting. Not everybody can enjoy that.
However, the way he dealt with words, for me personally, is unique. I do not know of anybody who managed to handle written language (with regard to prose) in a more beautiful way. Suggestions are welcome!

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimbel in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.

Since I have done a research essay on Franz Kafka and his work (20 pages) I think I can say I do not exactly love Kafka, but I sure have a great deal of respect for his work. I read "The transformation" and with the immense background on his life I acquired through my work I must say it is amazing what he has done and what he has gone through. Most of his work can be seen in autobiographical context, it makes his work great nonetheless. Reading his work without knowing his family and work background is quite an experience, and reading it while knowing about his conditions, it is even more amazing. I believe while he never wanted to be and never looked upon himself as a great artist or writer, he did create a whole new world for literature. He certainly did not start a revolution, but in his own way, he created paths that weren't there before. Although grotesque and estranging, I find his books amazing and very well written in a very clear analytic way, in which he also wrote his journals (which I had the most involuntarily honor to read - ALL OF THEM). His father must've been a hell of a creep though.

The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labour. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~ Albert Einstein