This week in FRANZ, Elif Batuman writes: “This is the main question of my talk: what happens when we look at the Kafka-Brod relationship as a collaboration? Just to clarify, I mean this in a very moderate sense—I’m not saying it’s an equal collaboration. Or only a collaboration. But what do we learn when we look at the relationship as, among other things, a collaboration?” In the coming weeks, we’ll begin publishing Kafka’s first letters to Max Brod. To mark the occasion, we asked for permission to share Elif Batuman’s write-up of the brilliant talk she gave on Kafka and Brod at the Kafka 100 conference in Prague in June 2024—later published on her Substack, The Elif Life eliflife.substack.com. She generously agreed, and we’re delighted to present it here.