Dearest Father (Oneworld Modern Classics) - Softcover

Kafka, Franz

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1847490255 ISBN 13: 9781847490254

Publisher: Oneworld Classics, 2009

Synopsis

Conflict between father and son is one of the oldest themes in literature, and in this open letter to his father a letter that was never sent Kafka tries to come to terms with one of the most deeply rooted obsessions of his troubled soul. Written as a long, tense, and dramatic confession in which writer and man are gathered together in front of an ambivalent figure of authority, Letter to My Father is a desperate attempt to retrace the origins of a turbulent and highly conflicted relationship between an unflinching parent and an extremely sensitive child. Kafka’s inspired work is both a merciless indictment of his father and an impassioned appeal to him.

About this title

About the Author:

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) was one of the major German-language fiction writers of the 20th century, known for The Metamorphosis and The Trial.

Review:

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, July 9, 2008

About this edition

• Publisher: Oneworld Classics
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1847490255
• ISBN 13: 9781847490254
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128