Franz Kafka Museum

The Franz Kafka Museum, located in the Herget Brickworks on the Vltava River’s Lesser Town bank, offers an immersive experience into the life and works of Prague-born author Franz Kafka. The exhibition features first editions of Kafka’s works, personal correspondence, diaries, manuscripts, photographs, and drawings, many previously unseen. The museum’s design reflects Kafka’s themes of existential anxiety and alienation, providing a profound insight into his literary world. Guided tours are available in multiple languages, and the museum shop offers related literature and souvenirs.

Planning your visit

The Franz Kafka Museum does not attempt neutrality about its subject. Housed in the Herget Brickworks on the Malá Strana bank of the Vltava, it stages Kafka's Prague as Kafka experienced it: dim rooms, filing cabinets, distorted sound, corridors that narrow, projections of the city as bureaucratic labyrinth. The first section covers his life through first editions, letters, diaries, manuscripts, photographs and drawings — including correspondence with Felice Bauer and Milena Jesenská, and the letter to his father that runs to dozens of pages. The second section interprets his work through installation rather than display.

Whether that succeeds depends on your tolerance for atmosphere over documentation. Visitors wanting a straightforward literary museum sometimes find it overwrought; readers of the novels frequently find it exactly right.

The courtyard outside holds David Černý's fountain of two figures urinating into a basin shaped like the Czech Republic, which draws its own audience. The location is a few minutes from Charles Bridge.

Allow around an hour. Bookable options include entry tickets and tickets with audio guides, available in multiple languages — worth taking, since the exhibition's atmospheric approach leaves a good deal unexplained without one. Current availability is listed below.