Origin
In early 2021, Snopes readers asked us to look into the accuracy and origins of a story shared widely on social media that described a heartwarming episode in the later life of the novelist Franz Kafka.
The Facebook and Twitter posts typically began as follows:
At 40, Franz Kafka (1883-1924), who never married and had no children, walked through the park in Berlin when he met a girl who was crying because she had lost her favourite doll. She and Kafka searched for the doll unsuccessfully.
The story describes how Kafka consoled the girl by bringing her letters, supposedly written by the doll, recounting her exciting adventures around the world. Eventually, the story goes, Kafka brought her a different doll, passing it off as the original one. Kafka dies, and years later the girl, now a woman, finds a note hidden inside the doll given to her by Kafka. It reads: