La carta al padre. Contemplación. La condena. El fogonero.

by Franz Kafka

Esta carta de Kafka de 1919 bien podría ser una carta de ficción. Atribuida a cualquier de sus grandes personajes, a K., por ejemplo, protagonista de El proceso y de El castillo que, en rigor, no son otra cosa que cartas íntimas transmutadas alegatos dirigidos a una instancia inalcanzable. Vista así también esta carta al padre, personal y directa, es una de sus tantas configuraciones, más densa y visceral que otras, del trámite que es la vida. No llegó nunca a su pretendido destino: ser entregada al padre, por mediación de la madre. Es posible que Kafka esperara de la carta algún efecto mágico, una especie de reconciliación; seguro es que, después de habérsela devuelto la madre sin atreverse a darle curso, siguió abrigando esperanzas de poder entregarla algún día . Y ahora esta carta afronta en el mundo el destino de la divulgación, extraño a su esencia. Para un conocedor de Kafka, esta historia de su carta respira, como ella misma, la atmosfera de sus grandes ficciones; es como un andamio para edificar uno de sus cuentos. El volumen incluye, además, los tres primeros libros publicados por el autor en 1913: Contemplación, La condena y El Fogonero.

176 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2012

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

[Josefa · Rating 5 out of 5]

perfectamente podríamos hablar del progenitor promedio d toda una generación aki loco, kafka kiero tomarme un tecito cntigo y hablar d nuestros traumas

[Joaquín Canelo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bueno... Kafka evidentemente odiaba al padre con toda su alma, es increíble la carta, todo lo que expresa Kafka es de una claridad, tristeza y resentimiento increíble. Un documento importantísimo, un maestro expresando todos sus sentimientos al alcance de todos, increíble. Kafka por suerte nos dió el gusto de poder entenderlo en todo su esplendor con sus cartas y diarios, capaz gracias al padre que como él dice le privó la capacidad de orar limitandolo a escribir todo...

[Deníss Winchester · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me siento muy triste por Franz y la vida que tuvo, la relación con su padre y hermanos. Pero el libro es muy bueno y corto.

[Maitiña · Rating 5 out of 5]

Y cómo derivado de la educación que me brindaste le temo, antes que a nada, a mi mismo.