Letters To Milena

Franz Kafka's letters to his one-time muse Milena Jesenská offer an intimate window into the desires and hopes of the twentieth century's most prophetic and important writer. Kafka first made the acquaintance of Milena Jesenská in 1920, when she was translating his early short prose into Czech, and their relationship quickly developed into a deep attachment. Such was his feeling for her that Kafka showed her his diaries—and in doing so, laid bare his heart and his conscience. While at times Milena's "genius for living" gave Kafka new life, it ultimately exhausted him, and their relationship lasted little over two years. In 1924, Kafka died in a sanatorium near Vienna, and Milena died in 1944 at the hands of the Nazis, leaving Letters to Milena as a moving record of their relationship.