Looking For a Good Book

This was beautiful.

Milena Jesenská was a Czech journalist, writer, editor and translator. It was in the latter role that she rose to some small fame as she was one of the first to translate the works of Franz Kafka from German to Czech. She’d discovered one of his stories which made an impact on her and she wrote directly to him and asked if she could do the translation. This letter started an intense and passionate exchange between them.

Milena was married to Ernst Pollak, a literary critic. His income was poor, which was why Milena began translating. But through the letter exchange with Kafka, Milena lived a vicarious affair. They did meet twice to consummate the affair.

But as neither of them could commit (at the same time) to leaving the safety of their known lives, their relationship – both romantic and epistolary -weighed heavily on them and their attitudes turned colder.

Later in life, as a dictator rose to power in Germany and began eradicating Jews, Milena, who joined a resistance movement to help Jews, was brought in for questioning. The fact that she had been married to a Jew (Ernst) and worked closely with a Jew (Kafka), she was considered no better than a Jew by the Nazis and would be treated as such.

Beautiful and amazing.

Author Christine Estima has written an epic literary work that is part biography, part romance, part historical fiction, and part tragedy. It’s hard to see where fact and fiction separate in this work. Estima climbs into the heart of Milena and finds and shares her strength as she stands up to the Nazis and presents Milena’s heart in the same way that Milena shares Kafka’s heart through her translations of his work.

It’s wonderful how Christine Estima has brought this story, of this strong, determined woman, to life. What she went through, what she how she took control, what she survived (and what she didn’t) in the early 20th century is nothing less than miraculous. It’s sad that she survives in our consciousness only  because of a man and her brief affair with him. Had he not been Kafka or someone equally notable, Milena would most likely have been completely forgotten.

But how sweet that Estima has written this story from Milena’s point of view. It makes sense and I can’t imagine it any other way.

This has me more interested in Milena Jesenská (I’ve been a tremendous Kafka fan for decades) and I’ve picked up a biography of her, written by a woman she befriended in a concentration camp, because of this book.

I finished this book days ago and I’ve been thinking about it and specific scenes since, it has that much power. I look forward to reading more by Christine Estima.

Looking for a good book? Letters to Kafka by Christine Estima is a sweeping tale of one woman of history. It is powerful and beautiful.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

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Letters to Kafka

author: Christine Estima

publisher: House of Anansi Press

ISBN: 9781487013318

paperback, 384 pages