Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors

"Kafka's letters are precious for what they reveal of a literary genius's insights into the predicaments of the modern artist, as well as for what they tell us of Kafka's loves, loyalties, fears, guilt, and his floundering attempts to cope with the debilitating disease that blighted half his adult life . . . Fluently and gracefully translated, helpfully annotated with care and admirable concision, [they] afford us an inside view of a writer who, perhaps more than any other novelist or poet in our century, stands at the center of our culture." --Robert Alter, The New York Times Book Review

"When we turn from Kafka's books to his letters, we have a series of self-portraits desperate and courageous, always eager and warm in feeling; the self is lit by fantasy and, of course, by drollery. He was a marvelous letter writer." --V. S. Pritchett, The New York Review of Books

"These letters are like messages from the dark side of the moon, presenting aspects of Kafka that would have died with his friends. We meet Kafka the artist, friend, son, father figure, marriage counselor, literary critic, insurance official . . . a full portrait, and a significant contribution to Kafka scholarship." --Smithsonian