Milena’s Letters to Kafka
Published in Issue #10 Translated from Serbian by Maya Shlivic(Excerpt from a Fictional Correspondence)
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To write letters means to reveal oneself in front of ghosts, which they greedily anticipate.
– Franz Kafka in a letter to Milena
One evening in May 1973, Ana Šomlo met the writer Zoran Gluscevic in Belgrade. In conversation she mentioned that she was reading Letters to Milena.
“Those are the most beautiful love letters,” said Gluscevic, the author of the book Kafka: The Keys to The Castle. “Imagine how wonderful her letters must have been. What a pity that they are lost forever.”
“I am not sure of that,” said Ana Šomlo, convinced that nothing can disappear forever. “I shall write them again.”
All the persons in this excerpt are real, just as the geographical names and the time in which all this was happening are authentic. Only some events have been invented.
This is a work of fiction.
1
Sometimes you really make me laugh with your childish remarks. As if you don’t read my letters! How can I make you believe, how can I break the cocoon in which you have isolated yourself from this world and in which, hidden and frightened, you wish to spend your life? What else will you think of in your defence? Well, I regret, I have neither the intention nor the ability to solve the Jewish problem, but love is a good formula for the salvation of man and woman, when every thought of theirs is rushing from one to the other. How many times should I write to you that I long for you? That is, for your voice, your look, your hands, for your smile. I love your looks and remember them well, your black hair and green...
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