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This letter is the closest that Kafka came to setting down his autobiography. He was driven to write it by his father's opposition to his engagement with Julie Wohryzek. The marriage did not take place; the letter was not delivered.
'In his preface he [the translator Howard Colyer] states that he was most concerned to reproduce the raw "venting of feelings" in the letter as well as the extraordinary "momentum of the prose." In both these aims he succeeds. Unlike earlier, and fussier, versions, his translation catches the naked energy of the original.' -- New York Sun, Eric Ormsby
The new edition includes the last letter Kafka wrote to his parents as he lay dying of tuberculosis near Vienna in 1924.
About the author
Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 - 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic.It typically features isolated protagonists facing bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic powers. It has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity. His best known works include "Die Verwandlung" ("The Metamorphosis"), Der Process (The Trial), and Das Schloss (The Castle).
