Letters to Milena by Franz Kafka

Description

In no other work does Kafka reveal himself as in the Letters to Milena, which begins essentially as a business correspondence but soon develops into a passionate “letterof  love.” Milena Jesenská was a gifted and charismatic woman of twenty-three. Kafka’s Czech translator was uniquely able to recognize his complex genius and his even more complex character. For the thirty-six-year-old Kafka, she was “a living fire, such as I have never seen.” It was to her that he revealed his most intimate self. It was to her that he entrusted the safekeeping of his diaries after the end of the affair.

This edition, newly translated, revised, and expanded, contains material previously omitted because of its extreme sensitivity. Also included for the first time are letters and essays by Milena Jesenská, herself a talented writer and the recipient of these documents of Kafka’s love, anxiety, and despair.