Letter to His Father: Modern Translation

by Franz Kafka, Frank Stillerman (translator)

Discover the Heartbreaking Confession Franz Kafka Never Meant for the World to See

Franz Kafka, the literary genius behind The Metamorphosis and The Trial, opens the door to his most personal struggle in Letter to His Father. This raw and emotional text, written in 1919 but never sent, is both a plea for understanding and a scathing account of the turbulent relationship between a son and his overbearing father.

Letter to His Father is now presented in a fresh, modern translation designed to make Kafka’s poignant and powerful words accessible to contemporary readers. This updated version brings clarity and immediacy to Kafka’s timeless exploration of the complex and fraught relationship between a son and his overbearing father.

In this searing letter, Kafka grapples with feelings of fear, guilt, and inadequacy, offering readers a unique window into the forces that shaped his identity and his work. With his signature introspection and masterful prose, he examines the weight of familial expectations, the wounds inflicted by power imbalances, and the desperate longing for reconciliation.

Published posthumously in 1952, Letter to His Father is more than a personal document—it is a universal exploration of the human condition, relatable to anyone who has felt misunderstood or struggled to find their place in the shadow of someone else.

This is Kafka at his most vulnerable, unguarded, and unforgettable. Whether you are a longtime admirer or discovering his work for the first time, Letter to His Father is a powerful testament to the man behind the masterpieces.

Step into Kafka’s world and uncover the story behind the stories. Order your copy today!

52 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 20, 2025

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

[Tyler Wells · Rating 4 out of 5]

Devastating

[jvickery88]

I read that Franz Kafka did not want this released but his 'friend' still did it after he passed away. I'd feel bad rating this, but this should be, or at least part of this should be mandatory reading for all fathers and fathers to-be.

[Kenzie Moseley · Rating 5 out of 5]

So well said, devastatingly sad.