New Delhi, Sept. 5 -- One hundred years ago, driven by an act of pure love and a deep-seated faith in the power of genius, writer Max Brod published what turned out to be the last novel Franz Kafka worked on before his death in 1924.

Das Schloss, or The Castle in English translation (the German word also means "lock"), remains one of the German master's most enigmatic endeavours, a peculiarly twisted tale of alienation and absurdism like many others he wrote, which he struggled to finish as tuberculosis ravaged his mind and body in the last months of his short life.

Kafka began the novel the day he arrived at the mountain resort of Spindlermuhle, now in the Czech Republic, in January 1922, hoping to recover from the illness that was gna...