The Zürau Aphorisms

The Zürau Aphorisms (German: Die Zürauer Aphorismen) are 109 aphorisms of Franz Kafka, written from September 1917 to April 1918 and published by his friend Max Brod in 1931, after his death, in the 1931 collection The Great Wall of China. They are selected from his writing in Zürau in West Bohemia (now Siřem in the community of Blšany, Czech Republic) where, suffering from tuberculosis, he stayed with his sister Ottla. Brod titled the book "Betrachtungen über Sünde, Hoffnung, Leid und den wahren Weg" (Reflections on Sin, Hope, Suffering, and the True Way).