Le ultime lettere ai genitori. 1922-1924

by Franz Kafka, Josef Čermák (Editor), Martin Svastos (Editor)

En 1986, un bouquiniste de Prague se vit proposer et acheta trente-deux lettres et cartes postales de Kafka adressées aux membres de sa famille. Le vendeur était un homme qui n'était nullement apparenté à Kafka ou à sa famille, et qui n'avait aucun rapport direct avec elle.Cette nouvelle collection de lettres date des deux dernières années de la vie de Kafka.L'ensemble comprend neuf lettres, vingt-deux cartes postales et une carte postale illustrée. La première a été écrite en 1922 et la dernière, juste avant sa mort, en 1924.

158 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Franz Kafka was a German-speaking writer from Prague whose work became one of the foundations of modern literature, even though he published only a small part of his writing during his lifetime. Born into a middle-class Jewish family in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kafka grew up amid German, Czech, and Jewish cultural influences that shaped his sense of displacement and linguistic precision. His difficult relationship with his authoritarian father left a lasting mark, fostering feelings of guilt, anxiety, and inadequacy that became central themes in his fiction and personal writings.
Kafka studied law at the German University in Prague, earning a doctorate in 1906. He chose law for practical reasons rather than personal inclination, a compromise that troubled him throughout his life. After university, he worked for several insurance institutions, most notably the Workers Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. His duties included assessing industrial accidents and drafting legal reports, work he carried out competently and responsibly. Nevertheless, Kafka regarded his professional life as an obstacle to his true vocation, and most of his writing was done at night or during periods of illness and leave. Kafka began publishing short prose pieces in his early adulthood, later collected in volumes such as Contemplation and A Country Doctor. These works attracted little attention at the time but already displayed the hallmarks of his mature style, including precise language, emotional restraint, and the application of calm logic to deeply unsettling situations. His major novels The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika were left unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime. They depict protagonists trapped within opaque systems of authority, facing accusations, rules, or hierarchies that remain unexplained and unreachable. Themes of alienation, guilt, bureaucracy, law, and punishment run throughout Kafka’s work. His characters often respond to absurd or terrifying circumstances with obedience or resignation, reflecting his own conflicted relationship with authority and obligation. Kafka’s prose avoids overt symbolism, yet his narratives function as powerful metaphors through structure, repetition, and tone. Ordinary environments gradually become nightmarish without losing their internal coherence. Kafka’s personal life was marked by emotional conflict, chronic self-doubt, and recurring illness. He formed intense but troubled romantic relationships, including engagements that he repeatedly broke off, fearing that marriage would interfere with his writing. His extensive correspondence and diaries reveal a relentless self-critic, deeply concerned with morality, spirituality, and the demands of artistic integrity. In his later years, Kafka’s health deteriorated due to tuberculosis, forcing him to withdraw from work and spend long periods in sanatoriums. Despite his illness, he continued writing when possible. He died young, leaving behind a large body of unpublished manuscripts. Before his death, he instructed his close friend Max Brod to destroy all of his remaining work. Brod ignored this request and instead edited and published Kafka’s novels, stories, and diaries, ensuring his posthumous reputation.
The publication of Kafka’s work after his death established him as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. The term Kafkaesque entered common usage to describe situations marked by oppressive bureaucracy, absurd logic, and existential anxiety. His writing has been interpreted through existential, religious, psychological, and political perspectives, though Kafka himself resisted definitive meanings. His enduring power lies in his ability to articulate modern anxiety with clarity and restraint.

Reviews

[Eingutesomen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Butter und Preisteuerung

[Itsblue · Rating 3 out of 5]

بپرس آب معدنی خوب دارند (فقط از روی کنجکاوی)

[Ivona Svetaljski · Rating 5 out of 5]

" Uostalom, povjerit ću Ti jednu tajnu u koju trenutačno ni sam ne vjerujem ( premda bi me možda u nju mogao uvjeriti mrak što se u daljini spušta oko mene pri pokušajima da radim i da mislim), no koja ipak mora da je istinita ; ja više neću ozdraviti. Baš zato što to nije tuberkuloza, koju se može položiti u ležaljku i izlječiti, već oružje koje će neophodno postojati sve dok sam živ. A oboje ne možemo ostati živi."
Felici Bauer, Zurau 1917.

Posljednja pisma sadrže brojna pisma Felici Bauer ( pozamašno mlađoj djevojci s kojom je dva puta bio zaručen ), Greti Bloch, Marxu Brodu ( a ona uglavnom uvijek počinju s " Najdraži Marx ), izdavačkim kućama..
Njegova veza s Felice se najbolje može iščitati upravo iz ove zbirke pisama jer ih sažima od samog početka njihovog burnog poznanstva.
Najpak, najviše me se dojmio kraj knjige, a to su kratke crtice koje bi zapisivao u sanatoriju Kierling u kom je i umro. Tako bi komunicirao s ljudima oko sebe, doktorima i osobljem.. To su male bilješke koje je zapisivao do svog samog kraja jer mu je bilo preporučeno da ne govori. U potpunosti je ostao dosljedan svom opusu.

" Opet strah. "
" I previše jasno se vidi kako jedan sotonski lijek drugom utire put. "
" Sad želim čitati. "
" Položi mi na trenutak ruku na čelo da dobijem hrabrosti. "
" Svaki ud umoran kao čovjek. "
" Tako odlazi pomoć, a da nije ni pomogla.. "