Summary
Franz Kafka: Letters to Milena
And maybe it's not true love when I say you're my darling; love is that you are my knife with which I dig into my own soul.
Franz Kafka met the journalist Milena Jesenska in Prague in 1920. He was in the company of mutual friends and during the conversation she suggested that she translate two of his stories into Czech. Milena lived in Vienna, Kafka in Prague. Many things separated them: she was unhappily married and young, and he was older, sick and still engaged. The first letters are decent: the two write about their health, the environment, literary articles, translations of Kafka's stories. Little by little, the tone changes, the need for a mutual exchange of news fuels the suffering of inflamed passion.
Kafka's diaries showed the true depth of that friendship, but they only hinted at what the letters reveal to us, which read like a romance novel, but also an outpouring of despair, bliss, self-accusation and self-humiliation. Thanks to their distinct immediacy and intimate tone, this book provides an exciting reading experience.
On the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of Kafka's death, Letters to Milena in a new translation by Maja Anastasijević reveal the personality of the writer whose prose left a deep mark on the literature of the 20th century.
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