Kafka’s Other Trial

Felice Bauer was Kafka’s first great love and the inspiration for his first great fiction. Six weeks after they met, he wrote “The Judgment” for her in one night of feverish activity. Kafka always referred to the traumatic, public breaking-off of their engagement as his “tribunal,” and indeed he began work on The Trial within a month of that event.

Kafka’s letters to Felice offer rare insights into the writer’s life and art. Elias Canetti’s brilliant and sensitive examination of this moving correspondence shows the origins of Kafka’s voice as a writer and his torment as a man.

About the author(s)

Elias Canetti was born in Bulgaria in 1905. He studied and stayed in Vienna until he came to England in 1938. He lives in London.