LETTERS TO FRIENDS, FAMILY, AND EDITORS.

The most comprehensive edition in print of Kafka's letters, with ample notes and an index Presenting Kafka as son, brother, student, friend, lover, writer, and critic, this volume reveals his fascination for life in all its complex, absurd, and tragic manifestations. Though aware of the precariousness of letter writing, Franz Kafka entrusted to letters many of his thoughts, impressions, experiences, and expectations. These letters--which follow Kafka's life from his student years through his experience as an insurance clerk to his final days, and explore his friendships with Max Brod, Felix Weltsch, and Oskar Baum--confirm his place as one of the great letter-writers of the 20th century. Franz Kafka[a] (3 July 1883 - 3 June 1924) was a German-language writer of novels and short stories, regarded by critics as one of the most influential authors of the 20th century. Kafka strongly influenced genres such as existentialism. Most of his works, such as "Die Verwandlung" ("The Metamorphosis"), Der Process (The Trial), and Das Schloss (The Castle), are filled with the themes and archetypes of alienation, physical and psychological brutality, parent-child conflict, characters on a terrifying quest, labyrinths of bureaucracy, and mystical transformations.