Letters to Felice

Resumen del libro

Now back in print, Franz Kafkas letters to his fiancé Felice Bauer, written over the course of their impassioned but doomed relationship, are 'some of the most heartrending love letters ever written' (Morris Dickstein, The New York Times Book Review).

Franz Kafka met Felice Bauer on August 13, 1912, at the home of his friend Max Brod. The twenty-five-year-old secretary from Berlin'energetic, down-to-earth, life-affirming'awakened in him a desire to marry. After weeks of agonizing, Kafka wrote his first letter to Felice on September 20 and would soon be writing passionate, self-deprecating, and anxious letters to her almost daily, sometimes even two or three times a day. Because he was living in Prague and she in Berlin, their letters became their sole source of knowledge of each other. But soon after their engagement was announced in 1914, Kafka began having doubts about the marriage, fearing that it would imperil his dedication to writing and interfere with his need for solitude. Through their breakup, a second engagement in 1917, and their final parting in the fall of that year, when Kafka began to feel the effects of the tuberculosis that would eventually claim his life, their correspondence continued. The more than five hundred letters that Kafka wrote to Felice over the course of those five years were acquired by Schocken Books from Felice Bauer in 1955. They reveal the full measure of Kafkas inner turmoil as he tried, in vain, to balance his desire for human connection with what he felt were the solitary demands of his craft.

Biografía del autor

Franz Kafka (1883-1924) fue un escritor de lengua alemana, conocido por sus cuentos, relatos, novelas y parábolas que exploran la alienación, el absurdo y la angustia existencial. Nacido en Praga, en el seno de una familia judía de clase media, Kafka vivió gran parte de su vida en una constante lucha interna entre su deseo de escribir y su trabajo en una oficina de seguros. Las tensiones familiares, especialmente con su padre, una figura autoritaria y distante, influyeron en su particular concepción del amor, algo que plasmó en gran parte de su obra literaria. A lo largo de su vida, Kafka mantuvo relaciones amorosas complicadas. En sus cartas a Felice Bauer, Milena Jesenská y otras mujeres, reflejó tanto sus obsesiones y entusiasmos como su temor a la intimidad y a la vida matrimonial. Esta constante introspección y el conflicto con su propia identidad se trasladan a su literatura, caracterizada por escenarios opresivos y personajes atrapados en sistemas burocráticos o situaciones ineludibles, como en El proceso y La metamorfosis. Pese a haber escrito mucho, Kafka publicó solo una pequeña parte de su obra en vida, y fue su amigo Max Brod quien se encargó de preservar y difundir su legado póstumo. Afectado por la tuberculosis, Kafka falleció en 1924 a la edad de 40 años. Hoy es considerado uno de los autores más influyentes del siglo XX.