Philip K. Dick vs. Franz Kafka
Side-by-side comparison of two thinkers
Philip K. Dick
1928 – 1982
Philip Kindred Dick was an American science fiction short story writer and novelist. He wrote 45 novels and about 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines. His fiction explored varied philosophical and social questions such as the nature of reality, perception, human nature, and identity, and commonly featured characters struggling against alternate realities, illusory environments, monopolistic corporations, drug abuse, authoritarian governments, and altered states of consciousness.
"You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every cre…"
Franz Kafka
1894 – 1924
Franz Kafka was a German-language Jewish Czech writer and novelist born in Prague, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature, his works fuse elements of realism and the fantastique, and typically feature isolated protagonists facing bizarre or surreal predicaments and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic powers. The term Kafkaesque has entered the lexicon to describe situations like those depicted in his writings.
"May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air."
Connections
Both wrote about: