Swiss Bank to showcase the Kafka papers which were hidden in their safe deposit box

July 20th, 2010 - 8:59 pm ICT by Aishwarya Bhatt  

kafa Zurich, July 20 (THAINDIAN NEWS) A bank in the Swiss capital - Zurich is all set to open a safe deposit box, which contains the drawings and writings of the late Franz Kafka, who was an acclaimed author. This comes as a new twist in the legal battle over the ownership of the papers.

Two Israeli women claim they received the papers as inheritance from their mum but the state of Israel sees the papers as part of its history. An expert will examine the papers and report his findings to the judge in the court battle.

It ought to be mentioned that Kafka died at 40, after he got infected with tuberculosis and he wished his novels like The Trial and The Castle would have remained inaccessible to the public. He ordered fellow writer and friend Max Brod to burn his writings after death, but Brod failed to listen to him and published some of his stories and took the rest to Israel where his secretary Esther Hoffe inherited them and subsequently left them to her daughters upon her death.

The legal battle began when the sisters tried to sell some of the writings. Israel is arguing that they have the right to Kafka’s writings as he was Jewish while the sisters say the writings were rightfully inherited by them and hence they can do as they wish with it.

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