Letters to Milena opens Goodreads in a new tab

Franz Kafka's letters to Milena Jesenska, the Czech journalist and translator who first introduced his work to Czech readers, written between 1920 and 1923. Their relationship developed quickly into a deep attachment; while her genius for living gave Kafka new life, it also exhausted him, and the affair lasted little more than two years. First published in German in 1952, the letters offer an intimate portrait of the writer in love.