About Max Brod
Max Brod (Hebrew: מקס ברוד; 27 May 1884 – 20 December 1968) was an Israeli author, music critic, composer, and journalist, born as a German-speaking Czech. He is notable for promoting the work of writer Franz Kafka and composer Leoš Janáček. Although he was a prolific writer in his own right, he is best remembered as the friend and biographer of Franz Kafka. Kafka named Brod as his literary executor, instructing Brod to burn his unpublished work upon his death. Brod refused and had Kafka's works published instead. In 1939, as the Nazis occupied Prague, he immigrated to Mandatory Palestine, taking with him a suitcase of Kafka's papers, many of them unpublished notes, diaries, and sketches. Unlike Kafka, Brod rapidly became a prolific author who eventually published 83 titles. Brod first met Kafka on 23 October 1902, when they were students at Charles University. His first novel and fourth book overall, Schloss Nornepygge (Nornepygge Castle), published in 1908 when he was only 24, was celebrated in Berlin literary circles as a masterpiece of expressionism.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.