Porn Claim Riles Kafka Scholars

Literary circles are in an uproar over a new biography of Franz Kafka that says the existentialist author had a penchant for porn, the Guardian reports. Kafka expert James Hawes, who says he unearthed some of the not-exactly-mainstream magazines the author enjoyed, makes the claim in a new book and says he was "genuinely shocked when I first saw it." Other Kafka scholars are outraged.

"This is some idiot who knows nothing about Kafka, but writes about him as if he did," thundered one Kafka critic. Another expert called Hawes a "preacher of hate." Hawes, in turn, charges that a "conspiracy of censorship" is trying to run him down and cover up Kafka's porn fetish. (More Franz Kafka stories.)