“The creator of the darkest lucidity in the history of literature“: this is how the essayist Erich Heller he expressed himself in one of his texts on Franz Kafka (Prague, 3 July 1883 – Kierling, 3 June 1924), the German-speaking Bohemian writer considered among the most prominent figures of modernist literature of the 20th century (and beyond).
Known in particular for works such as The metamorphosis And The processKafka is also the author of Letter to father And The castlewith which he anticipated many of the themes and issues of surrealism he was born in magical realismbecoming a landmark also for much of the twentieth century production (as we have explained in more detail in this in-depth analysis).
On the occasion of first centenary of his deathwhose exact date is June 3, 2024, many publishing houses are proposing a new edition of his booksoften translated from scratch or in any case provided with an updated critical apparatus.
This is the case, for example, of editions Giunti-Barbera of hers four masterpiecesor gods stories edited by Giulio Schiavoni published by Rizzoli. To these are added the Letter to his father of SE (translation by Claudio Groff) and of Newton Comptonwhich presents the translation by Francesca Ricci and Luigi Coppé in a new graphic format.
Not to mention the new cover of The metamorphosisalso in the Newton Compton house, and of the edition of this same story with facing text outgoing for Marsilioedited by Anita Raja and with an afterword by Giorgio Vallortigara, which is accompanied by a new compendium Garzanti delle letters to Milenatitled Written kisses never arrive (translation by Giulia Frare).
The original cover of The Metamorphosis by Franza Kafka [© Foto H.-P.Haack, CC BY 3.0]
But, above all, there are numerous texts that are arriving in bookstores on life and poetry of the great Bohemian writer, in which I am several Italian and foreign intellectuals to take stock of his conception ofartof theexistenceof the worldof the human feelings…
So here’s one below selection (which does not claim to be exhaustive and whose titles are not placed in order of importance) dedicated to the most recent biographies, letters, fragments, graphic novels And Education on Franz Kafkato delve deeper into its many facets from one prospect Always updated and authoritative…
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The review of books about Franz Kafka start from Kafka (The Ship of Theseus) by Mauro Covacichwhich gives life to aliterary investigation in which thoughts, letters and diary pages of the Prague writer converge: a prose that combines biography and storyto chase him in the East wind with the complicity with which one looks at a Brother. Covacich’s passion for Kafka in fact starts from adolescence, and he feeds on his notes on Teresian Trieste emerged from memories of the Bohemian author – as well as by Generali archiveswhere Kafka’s handwriting seems to follow thealienation of a job he hoped to abandon to pursue his own imagination.
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In Two. The passion of the bond in Kafka (Feltrinelli), the writer and translator Nadia Fusini investigate your own instead soulcomplex and very simple at the same time, to restore its rhythm and the intimate pulsation. What were the passions and the different pushes that led him to writing? “The beginning and the end remain in darknessin Kafka: he rather illuminates the processwhere and when everything is risk and danger.” And so the author does in this volume: not a wise man on Kafka or the tale of his life and works, but the testimony of his being. Through one nocturnal languagewhich often remains suspended and contradictory like that of dreams.
With Kafka. A world of truth (Sellerio) by Giorgio Fontana instead let’s delve deeper into it richness of Kafka’s workwithout ever forgetting theman behind it: drawing from his private writings and from tthese unpublished literary works in lifebut treating the material with the awareness of exploring the private sphere of a deceased person, Fontana asks himself a simple question in appearance. “Kafka again: why?“. And throughout the text he tries to answer the question by welding the cultural debt that our era has with the great Prague, together with the debt that has always linked thepersonal experience of the Italian writer to that of Kafka.
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My Kafka. Writings, letters, fragments
The journey dedicated to books about Franz Kafka continues with My Kafka. Writings, letters, fragments (Castelvecchi, translation by Luca Richiardi) by Walter Benjaminwhich is collected for the first time in Italy all writings by the German philosopher and critic on the Prague author. We therefore go from great sage of 1934 to articles and at reviewsgive her letters at annotationshere fully translated or retranslated and presented according to a criterion of maximum readability. A set of texts from which one emerges lucid interpretation of Kafka, on which Benjamin compared himself with personalities of the caliber of Scholem, Adorno, Brecht And Kraft.
Kafka. The years of decisions (il Saggiatore, translation by Mauro Nervi), however, is the second volume of monumental biography by Franz Kafka edited by Reiner Stachthat after Kafka. The years of awareness (il Saggiatore, translated by Mauro Nervi) focuses on the period from 1910 to 1915. These are the years of his first and timid literary awarenessbut also those of one heartbreaking love storyfor which Stach resorts to sources And unpublished documents just to open a window on it inner life by Kafka: a panorama sometimes cramped like the alleys of Pragueother times boundless like his creativity.
Always between books about Franz Kafkawe cannot fail to mention Another write. Letters 1904- 1924 edited by Max Brod (Neri Pozza, translation by Marco Rispoli and Luca Zenobi). In fact, Kafka and Brod met, not yet twenty years old, in 1902. From that first meeting a new relationship was born.‘friendship which lasted until Kafka’s death, and which revealed itself decisive for the existence of both. And so, in a dense tangle of confidences, anecdotes And reflectionslet’s see sharing with the friend, through the correspondence collected here, every aspect of existence by the Prague author, from the composition of novels up to his tormented moments love stories.
Kafka
A man methodicalobsessed with minutiae of life, condemned to magnify every detail until being overwhelmed by the weight of normality. With these words we could describe both Franz Kafka is the progenitor of underground comics Robert Crumbtwo authors so close as to be somehow destined to meet. And here in fact in the graphic novel Kafka (Rizzoli Lizard, translated by Marco Bertoli), with the help of the essayist David Zane MairowitzCrumb gives us the most emblematic moments of biography of Kafka, staging his own a lot masterpieces as much as the extracts of his diariesto make theecho of his nightmares.
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To all Kafka
Another interesting one book on Franz Kafka recently arrived on the shelves To all Kafka Of Nicolas Mahler (Clichy, translation by Matteo Galli and Franziska Peltenburg-Brechneff), a funny and insightful portrait of the Bohemian author who nevertheless investigates its darkest abysses, giving us back the attractiveness of the mix of meloncholy And dark humor by which Kafka has always been characterized. In its unusual synthesis of graphics and lyricism, Mahler’s text does not even shy away from giving answers to many big questions: who wrote, for example, the following de The metamorphosis? And why Kafka’s plan to write a series of books failed low cost tourist guides?
I’m Milena from Prague
I’m Milena from Prague Of Monika Zgustova (Elliot, translated by Sara Cavarero), for its part, tells the story of Milena Jesenskáknown by many only as “lKafka’s friend”, but who was actually a journalist, translator and writer of theViennese intellectual eliteas well as a member of the Czechoslovakian resistance and a woman ready to rebel againsttraditional social and domestic order. Starting with his own written and give them testimonials of those who knew her, Zgustova therefore reconstructs in this volume the life of a woman courageous and charismatic, generous And brilliantfinally giving her back aidentity all round.
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Trespassing. Kafka one hundred years later
And we conclude this selection of books on Kafka with Trespassing. Kafka one hundred years later edited by Luca Salza (Mimesis), a collective volume which explores the ability of the Prague author to make us imagine how much the condition of illegal immigrants, ofminors”, of refugees is probably the most appropriate for orient ourselves in the catastropheto exist and to resist despite the world often unclean in which we live. Moreover, beyond their apparent desolation, it is precisely Kafka’s texts that lay the foundations of a community to come in which every form of will cease to exist nationalism. With the hope that, one day, it can become reality…
