Amerika, also known as The Man Who Disappeared, The Missing Person and as Lost in America (German: Der Verschollene), is the incomplete first novel by author Franz Kafka (1883–1924), written between 1911 and 1914 and published posthumously in 1927. The novel originally began as a short story titled "The Stoker". The novel incorporates many details of the experiences of his relatives who had emigrated to the United States. The commonly used title Amerika can be traced to the edition of the text put together by Max Brod, a close friend of Kafka's during the latter's lifetime, after Kafka's death in 1924.