The Letter to Father (1919) was never sent but is considered the key to Franz Kafka's (1883–1924) literary work. This impressive testimony to a dramatic father-son conflict is an exceptional document in world literature. At once an indictment and a self-analysis, it gives the reader an insight into the complex inner life of its author. In a vivid captivating style, Kafka attempts to settle accounts with his authoritarian father, who appeared to him so tyrannical and onmipotent that he could write: "Sometimes I imagine the map of the world spread out and you stretched diagonally across it."
