Letters to Felice

Kafka met Felice Bauer at Max Brod's house in August 1912. A few weeks later he wrote her a letter, and five years of correspondence began: thousands of pages about work, family, the future, marriage and the fear of all three. “Letters to Felice” is the largest collection of Kafka's letters and perhaps the best place to see his double bind: a man who wants to belong to someone and flees every form of belonging.

In these letters Kafka calls himself “made of literature.” That phrase is the key to the relationship. Felice represented ordinary life: a job, a family, marriage, a future. Kafka loved her and at the same time knew that ordinary life would leave less room for writing. They were engaged twice, and twice the engagement was broken. The relationship ended in 1917.

These letters should be read with care. Kafka is kind and self-absorbed, honest and performing a role. But those contradictions are exactly what makes the collection one of the most important literary documents of the twentieth century.