Letters to Kafka

by Christine Estima

A sweeping, tragic romance and feminist adventure about translator and resistance fighter Milena Jesenská’s torrid love affair with Franz Kafka.


In 1919, Milena Jesenská, a clever and spirited twenty-three-year-old, is trapped in an unhappy marriage to literary critic Ernst Pollak. Since Pollak is unable to support the pair in Vienna’s post-war economy, Jesenská must supplement their income by working as a translator. Having previously met her compatriot Franz Kafka in the literary salons of Prague, she writes to him to ask for permission to translate his story The Stoker from German to Czech, becoming Kafka’s first translator. The letter launches an intense and increasingly passionate correspondence. Jesenská is captivated by Kafka’s energy, intensity, and burning ambition to write. Kafka is fascinated by Jesenská’s wit, rebellious spirit, and intelligence.


Jesenská and Kafka meet twice for lovers’ trysts, but can such an intense connection endure beyond a fleeting affair? In her remarkable debut novel, Christine Estima weaves little-known facts and fiction into a rich tapestry, powerfully portraying the struggles of a woman forced to choose between the roles of wife, lover, and intellectual.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Romance, Fiction

384 pages, Paperback

Published September 9, 2025

About the author

Christine Estima is the author of THE SYRIAN LADIES BENEVOLENT SOCIETY (2023) and LETTERS TO KAFKA (2025). Her essays and short stories have appeared in the New York Times, Vice, the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the Observer, the New York Daily News, Chatelaine, the Walrus, Refinery 29, Bitch, Maisonneuve, and elsewhere.

Her short story "Your Hands Are Blessed" was selected for the BEST CANADIAN STORIES 2023 anthology.

Follow her on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/cestima

Reviews

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This book is set between world wars in a time of significant change. Women’s rights and roles are evolving although not quick enough for Milena Jesenka. Based on a true account Milena and Franz Kafka have a passionate affair which the author does a brilliant job in imagining. I enjoyed this book and the author is incredibly talented for this to be a debut.

Thank you House of Anansi for the complimentary copy.

[Courtney Pityer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before reading this interesting novel I had to do some research on Milena Jesenska because I had no idea who she was. In my findings. I discovered that she was a journalist in Czechoslovakia best known for exchanging passionate letters with Franz Kafka. She also was a resistance fighter during the second world war which eventually lead to her downfall. I will admit this ended up being a history lesson for me but overall I was enjoyed with my findings and with the story itself. I have read novels before of women working the resistance but they weren't instense as this one. I will keep this review short as I don't wish to reveal too much
The novel begina in 1919 with Milena being married to a man she literally depises. She takes on a job translating and from thers takes up correspondence with Franz Kafka. The two manage to meet up various times for lovers trysts but nothing ever develops more between them. Eventually she goes through life marrying several more times. At the start of the second world war she is doing everything in her power to make things better but like anyone who gets caught things don't go well as planned.
I received an arc copy from Netgalley and all opinions are of my own.

[Jenn]

DNF. This just isn't for me.

[Indhyra Helfrich Linares · Rating 4 out of 5]

A stunning debut. I was immediately immersed in Milena’s journey—her resilience and wit make for such a compelling story. Historical-fiction lovers will not be disappointed.



Thank you to House of Anansi Press for the free copy

[mer · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I'd much rather be somebody's shot of whiskey then everybody's cup of tea."

I'm not usually into historical novels much but I was so intrigued by Milena and safe to say this did not disappoint, I adored her character and this book was addicting yet often so sad (especially the ending)

[Steph Percival · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superbly researched and imagined, Letters to Kafka is utterly immersive. With her pen, Christine Estima has waved a wand and brought Milena to life, as fully realized as anyone living today, and set her amidst a richly detailed backdrop of 1920s Vienna and Prague. By far one of the best novels of 2025 and one I’ll want to return to.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was OK, I know it’s based on the true story between Kafka and Milena, but I felt it was a little overdone. She was always racing. There was always a jackdaw outside the window.

[K.J. Aiello · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning doesn't even cover it. Brava!

[Richard Derus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bookends with Mattea Roach interview with Author Estima.

Real Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A sweeping, tragic romance and feminist adventure about translator and resistance fighter Milena Jesenská’s torrid love affair with Franz Kafka.

In 1919, Milena Jesenská, a clever and spirited twenty-three-year-old, is trapped in an unhappy marriage to literary critic Ernst Pollak. Since Pollak is unable to support the pair in Vienna’s post-war economy, Jesenská must supplement their income by working as a translator. Having previously met her compatriot Franz Kafka in the literary salons of Prague, she writes to him to ask for permission to translate his story The Stoker from German to Czech, becoming Kafka’s first translator. The letter launches an intense and increasingly passionate correspondence. Jesenská is captivated by Kafka’s energy, intensity, and burning ambition to write. Kafka is fascinated by Jesenská’s wit, rebellious spirit, and intelligence.

Jesenská and Kafka meet twice for lovers’ trysts, but can such an intense connection endure beyond a fleeting affair? In her remarkable debut novel, Christine Estima weaves little-known facts and fiction into a rich tapestry, powerfully portraying the struggles of a woman forced to choose between the roles of wife, lover, and intellectual.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Modeling to a world unwilling to see what principled resistance to authoritarianism looks like, Milena Jesenská could be no more perfect a subject to study in 2025. Christine Estima has done it for us, and presented her findings in an involving, intense novel of Milena's life. The incident igniting her rise to resistance is a simple and practical one: she needs income. Her then-husband can't, in 1919 Vienna, provide for them. Having very recently read Kafka's stories and being moved deeply by them, Milena writes to request permission to translate them into Czech. Her aim is to get income...the result is to become utterly, passionately entwined with Kafka. It was not primarily a physical affair, only two known meetings, but a deep and consuming love.

The story here, however, is Jesenská...the woman, the intellectual, the object of desire for many members of the Vienna Secession. Reading this book of her own words, stitched into the author's gap-filling prose, I was unable to conceive of a good reason this vibrant and impassioned liver of life and lover of justice was so unfamiliar to me. I know the reason...she's a woman, misogyny's polarizing lenses filter those people out...but talk about stupid! Writing Milena Jesenská out of History is a wrong I hope we will see righted more and more. A resister of Nazism, not a Jew but friend to Jews and accomplice to their escape from certain death, person whose life trajectory includes Ravensbrück, is someone to be celebrated loudly and often. Never more than now.

The mind that created cultural touchstones Gregor Samsa and K., that saw Reality in place of consensus reality, said to Milena: "Milena, if a million loved you, I am one of them, and if one loved you, it was me, if no one loved you then know that I am dead. - FK". A spirit that can elicit this deep and passionate love from one whose life is known by him to be quite short is one worth knowing and celebrating.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This review originally published in Looking For a Good Book. Rated 4.5 of 5

This was beautiful.

Milena Jesenská was a Czech journalist, writer, editor and translator. It was in the latter role that she rose to some small fame as she was one of the first to translate the works of Franz Kafka from German to Czech. She'd discovered one of his stories which made an impact on her and she wrote directly to him and asked if she could do the translation. This letter started an intense and passionate exchange between them.

Milena was married to Ernst Pollak, a literary critic. His income was poor, which was why Milena began translating. But through the letter exchange with Kafka, Milena lived a vicarious affair. They did meet twice to consummate the affair.

But as neither of them could commit (at the same time) to leaving the safety of their known lives, their relationship - both romantic and epistolary -weighed heavily on them and their attitudes turned colder.

Later in life, as a dictator rose to power in Germany and began eradicating Jews, Milena, who joined a resistance movement to help Jews, was brought in for questioning. The fact that she had been married to a Jew (Ernst) and worked closely with a Jew (Kafka), she was considered no better than a Jew by the Nazis and would be treated as such.

Beautiful and amazing.

Author Christine Estima has written an epic literary work that is part biography, part romance, part historical fiction, and part tragedy. It's hard to see where fact and fiction separate in this work. Estima climbs into the heart of Milena and finds and shares her strength as she stands up to the Nazis and presents Milena's heart in the same way that Milena shares Kafka's heart through her translations of his work.

It's wonderful how Christine Estima has brought this story, of this strong, determined woman, to life. What she went through, what she how she took control, what she survived (and what she didn't) in the early 20th century is nothing less than miraculous. It's sad that she survives in our consciousness only because of a man and her brief affair with him. Had he not been Kafka or someone equally notable, Milena would most likely have been completely forgotten.

But how sweet that Estima has written this story from Milena's point of view. It makes sense and I can't imagine it any other way.

This has me more interested in Milena Jesenská (I've been a tremendous Kafka fan for decades) and I've picked up a biography of her, written by a woman she befriended in a concentration camp, because of this book.

I finished this book days ago and I've been thinking about it and specific scenes since, it has that much power. I look forward to reading more by Christine Estima.

Looking for a good book? Letters to Kafka by Christine Estima is a sweeping tale of one woman of history. It is powerful and beautiful.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

[Taylor Disselhorst · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher (House of Annasi Press) for the ARC! Review is my own.

"Now that I'm grown I want to threaten people with my wit. I want to charm people with my charisma. I want to be otherworldly. I want to scorch every heart and engulf every spirit I encounter. I want to be loved and helplessly adored for the power of my thoughts."

This book has me begging for the world to give a second chance to a man and woman who died over 80-100 years ago!

Vienna/Europe during this time (rise of Vienna Secession - WWII) is something I find incredibly interesting and was my initial reason for requesting the book. I did not know much about Franz and Milena, only bits of his letters, so the name dropping of prominent figures in the beginning got me hooked (Klimt, Schiele, Sinclair).

The author writes so beautifully. Poetic prose that really immersed the reader in Vienna and Prague. I haven’t been to either city since 2019 but the way she wrote it was correct, it felt ephemeral yet giant. Like you are constantly retracing someone else's footsteps.

Mostly though I think the author did a phenomenal job of portraying the heartbreaking love between Franz and Milena. Weaving in the real writings with ones imagined - knowing they couldn’t and wouldn’t be together but desperate for a taste of one another - it felt real. After getting to know Milena I think that Estima probably got as close as we could ever picture someone getting after Kafka himself.

‘Affair’ seems so meek and dirty and distasteful to describe these two. If a man wrote to me ‘I need all the time I have and a thousand times more than all the time I have and most of all I��d like to have all the time there is just for you, for thinking about you, for breathing you in” and then history called it a mere affair I’d come back and HAUNT them. I think the author hit this point that we can call it brief but to call it weak is a disservice.

Milena had such a sad life (hard family life, bad marriages, loss, arrests/psych holds, being captured by nazis), but Estima never made it seem like Milena saw it that way. In those hardships, she made the her life beautiful in ways that mattered to her. She read and wrote, took risks, helped people escape the nazis. An incredibly interesting, intellectual woman until the end. Almost too cool for Franz, which I think he knew too.

I also didn’t know that the “If BLANK has 100 fans i am one of them, if they have one its me, if they have none then im dead” trend came from KAFKA TO MILENA!!!

Milena, if a million loved you, I am one of them, and if one loved you, it was me, if no one loved you then know that I am dead. - FK

Anyway I will be reading ‘Letters to Milena’ to further hurt myself.

[J.J. Dupuis · Rating 5 out of 5]

From my review in The Miramichi Reader:

In his preface to Franz Kafka’s Letters to Milena, published in 1952, Willy Haas describes Milena Jesenska as “…passionate, intrepid, cool and intelligent in her decisions, but reckless in the choice of means when her passion was involved…” That short character sketch alone is enough to convince any reader that Milena Jesenska has the qualities of a protagonist, even if they didn’t know of her real-life accomplishments as a translator, writer, editor and member of the resistance movement fighting against the Nazis during their occupation of Czechoslovakia.

Putting Milena Jesenska front and centre is exactly what Christine Estima has done with her powerful debut novel Letters to Kafka. With the historical knowledge and skill that were on display in her story collection The Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society, Estima takes readers on a journey to central Europe in the 20s and 30s, to the cobblestone streets, cafés and boudoirs inhabited by the criminally-underappreciated Jesenska and the legendary Franz Kafka. In doing so, politics and history come alive with a literary flourish.

The novel opens in Prague, 1939, where we see Milena has been detained by Nazis who begin interrogating her. This is told to us in the third person, and we watch as though through a two-way mirror, as Milena stands strong in the face of insults, threats and violence. Her interrogator, rather than asking her many questions about the operations of the resistance, their tactics and secrets, fixates on her womanhood, that she chose to marry a Jew (Ernst Pollak) and why she has rejected the life of a house frau.

The following chapter takes readers back to 1918, to the post-Great War tumult. Told in the first person, what we see is not Hemingway’s post-war Paris or Fitzgerald’s jazz age. We get a world that has been turned upside down, where proud, wealthy families have been reduced to hardship. Yet in that chaos there is opportunity for someone brave enough to push for change. Jesenska has not been dealt a great hand, but with her education and skillset, not to mention her guts and fortitude, she tries to make something more of her life, challenging patriarchal norms and not settling.

In Kafka’s Letters to Milena, we are never given her replies. Estima corrects that with this novel, imagining Jesenska’s responses and giving us the lunges, feints, parries and ripostes of a courtship that took place primarily in written form. This epistolary element adds yet another narrative layer to this literary tiramisu, along with both the first- and third- person narration. For readers unfamiliar with Kafka, central Europe in the 20s or Czechoslovakia under the Nazis, Estima’s approach makes the historical details easy to digest.

Letters to Kafka deals with difficult subject matter and the ugliness that men subject women to. Milena goes from facing the caprices of Depression Era patriarchy to the even-more-regressive patriarchy of the National Socialist movement. But far from being a novel of darkness and hopelessness, this book crackles with wit. Without being written in the slow, cumbersome style found in much of the fiction of the early twentieth century, Letters to Kafka maintains a historic authenticity. The humour and voice remain true to the period, and Estima takes full advantage of the context to create drama and tension among readers with contemporary sensibilities.

Both a deeply-intimate story and one that rides on the tide of historical turning points, Letters to Kafka is a beautifully-rendered novel. Estima creates characters with such dimension that, among the cinematic backdrop she has constructed with precise prose, no previous knowledge of Franz Kafka or Milena Jesenska is required. Just sit back and let this book take you on a journey.

[Alison Gadsby]

“Your letters were the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me in my life.” Franz Kafka to Milena Jesenská.

LETTERS TO KAFKA by Christine Estima is an intimate and emotional consideration of the life of a woman who wanted to be more than a wife, more than a beautiful object to be held, more than the recipient of Franz Kafka’s letters, which were published as Letters to Milena in 1952, almost 30 years after his death.

The novel opens in Prague in 1939 where Milena is being held in Pankrác Prison. While she sings through beatings in her “sessions” with the Obergruppenführer, we know her strength immediately. “You should be pitied, not feared” she says to him.

As we shift to first-person narrated sections, from 1918 to 1925, we see and understand Milena as closely as if we were standing in the same room. “I work so hard, and my man-about-town husband gives me no money. My misery is like luggage: every day I carry something heavier than the last.” Estima paints Milena in all her emotional layers—in fragments of time, in letters, telegrams, interactions, conversations, and walks through town—as an artist might paint his beloved muse.

The story unfolds like a housekeeper’s gossip—the kind that leaves you hanging on every juicy word—. Estima’s prose is vivid, sensual, breathing new life into the age-old story of a love that can never be anything but letters full of unrequited longing. Historical details feel like reader-candy to me with Freud sipping coffee and Klimt and the other artists and writers of the time flitting about. Time travel anyone?

There are very funny moments. When Milena fears her husband might move them to Canada! “Canada?! Where they strap blades to their feet and call it an Olympic sport? It’s barely even a country.” Or “I come from the Church of the United Sisterhood of I Don’t Give a Damn What You Think.“ Or “Your father would rather shit in his hands and clap before speaking to a pious Jew like me.“ There is brilliance on every page.

“There is an unstable burn that comes with being a woman among the fallout of men.”
Now, we have Milena’s story—finally. And it’s beautiful.

[Laurie Burns · Rating 4 out of 5]

Today is the release date of “Letters to Kafka” a sensual and beautifully imaginative take on a historical novel by Christina Estima. This is a feminist tale of translator and resistance fighter Milena Jesenská’s torrid love affair with Franz Kafka as well as her unfortunate end.
Being a smart woman, especially as a writer and intellectual, can still be very hard for certain idiots to accept today, let alone in 1919 in Vienna’s post- war economy where money and work were both tight. Milena is stuck in an unhappy marriage, but her wit, beauty and intellect make her a popular figure in intellectual circles of the time. She meets Franz Kafka and asks if she can translate some of his work from the German to Czech and also starts an illicit affair. The letters they write to each other are passionate, and even though they only meet twice in person for lover’s trysts, they make a giant impact on the other.
I suggest taking your time with this sensual and eclectic prose. Milena is often very witty and funny, and her insults are some of the most quotable I have ever read, “you sly little tit bag.” I also love the way she speaks about love and passion and the fact that “the line between passion and revulsion is a thin one and I am toeing it.” So relatable! Of course, we know the heavy history that comes near the end, the concentration camps and the horrible treatment, and we watch Kafka meet his early end.
A wonderful and different read, and now I will be right back, because I have to go read “Letters to Milena” by Kafka now.

[Alissa Minard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story of resilience and independence in a time of great change. Milena is an incredibly compelling protagonist. In both her career and love affairs she is sharp, entertaining, and least a tad bit messy.

Opening with her being interrogated by the Nazi’s was an extremely strong hook that left me wondering how she got there throughout the book.

The language throughout is evocative and at times shocking. Milena flirts with the taboo adding an element of thrill to her inner monologue.

The ending left me devastated even though I knew where it was heading. While this book is specifically about Milena Jesenská it feels like a love letter to the strong, independent women who came before those words were meant as a compliment.

I highly recommend this for fans of historical fiction, or for those that want to read a story about a brave and bold woman who bent the world to her whims.


Thank you to House of Anansi for the ARC. Thoughts expressed in this review are entirely my own.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A moving historical fiction novel that brings readers into the literary world of Vienna in the 1920’s and the horrors of Prague in the late 1930’s as it explores the life of journalist and literary translator Milena Jesenska. From the literary cafe world of Vienna to the Gestapo interrogations, readers are immersed in Milena’s world as she struggles to find her way to love and work as a writer. The opportunity to translate Franz Kafka’s works provides an escape from her marriage and into the literary world on her own merit. The letters, telegrams, and dialog between them illustrates their connection and how Milena thinks and loves. The postscript provides readers with additional information about the characters in the book which I appreciated. I wanted to know what happened to them. I recommend this book to readers of historical fiction or readers that enjoy books about the literary world.

Thank you to House of Anansi for the free copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

[szreads · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read sooo many historical fiction novels and this one takes the cake. It’s truly a masterpiece steeped in reality with amazing research and historical insights.

I can see why the author was so enthralled with Milena Jesenská and wanted to tell her story.

After reading I went on a deep dive searching for all things Milena and Kafka.

I’d previously read The Metamorphis and The Castle but had no idea Milena was so pivotal in their translation for other audiences. Reading about her work in translation and life in general was so eye opening.

I will say I was pleasantly surprised that the book was not mainly focused on her and Kafka despite the title. We also get an insight into the rest of her life and resistance work. My jaw did drop tho when I first read the chapter “Ravensbruck”.

The author is truly an amazing writer who artfully weaves a story between Milenas time with Kafka mainly post World War 1 as well as her experiences beyond and in the 1940s.

One quote from Milena which stuck with me was “"In Czech, I'm sentimental, sad, and truthful. In German, I'm sober, brief, and good-humoured. Which person would you like best?"

She’s truly a force to be reckoned with and I’m so glad she has had a book written showing her history.

History lovers, feminists, and fans of Kafka alike will surely enjoy this book.

Thank you to House of Anansi Press for the free copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Jeanelle d'Eon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loveeeeeee!!

I had no idea who Milena Jesenská was before this book and now I love her.

Books based in the early 1900s make me sad because the women are always so disenfranchised. Serving other people, put in a box, have very strict social norms to follow. Then we have Milena. Opinionated, smart, funny.

The writing was beautiful. I loved getting a deep dive into her thoughts and opinions. Her descriptions of people and places. Watching her fall in love.

[Enid Wray]

Clearly I’m not the reader for this title.

I enjoyed her debut short story collection - The Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society - but this just isn’t doing anything for me.

Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for granting me access to an early digital review copy.

DNF

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

For review

[Ann McDougall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. The writing is so evocative, it made me want to sip tea in Prague under the astronomical clock. Such a fascinating, passionate story. Great read.