Karen Reppin Boeken

Conflict between father and son is one of the oldest themes in literature, and in this open letter to his father - a letter which was never sent - Kafka tries to come to terms with one of the most deeply rooted obsessions of his troubled soul. Written as a long, tense and dramatic confession in which writer and man are gathered together in front of an ambivalent figure of authority, Dearest Father is a desperate attempt to retrace the origins of a turbulent and highly conflicted relationship between an unflinching parent and an extremely sensitive child. Both a merciless indictment of his father and an impassioned appeal to him, Kafka's inspired work is one of the most lucid and touching psychological documents of the twentieth century.

Franz Kafka's nightmarish novels and short stories have come to symbolize modern man's anxiety and alienation in a bizarre, hostile, and dehumanized world. This vision is most fully realized in Kafka's masterpiece, "The Metamorphosis," a story that is both harrowing and amusing, and a landmark of modern literature. Bringing together some of Kafka's finest work, this collection demonstrates the richness and variety of the author's artistry. "The Judgment," which Kafka considered to be his decisive breakthrough, and "The Stoker," which became the first chapter of his novel "Amerika, are here included. These two, along with "The Metamorphosis," form a suite of stories Kafka referred to as "The Sons," and they collectively present a devastating portrait of the modern family. Jason Baker is a writer of short stories living in Brooklyn, New York