Introduction to Kafka’s Brief An Den Vater

Mark: I first encounter Franz Kafka in the summer of 2015 when I read The Metamorphosis. My
fascination for him grew up to the point that I’ve decided to stage his story as my final project
for our Directing class. One of the things that I did to prepare for the production is to look at
Kafka’s works as part of my research and in my research I stumble upon this almost 50 pages
letter of Franz to his dad entitled – Brief An Den Vater.

Max Brodi: Of all the impressions of Kafka’s childhood the one that is of outstanding importance
is the grand image of his father exaggerated in its grandeur as it is undoubtedly is by Kafka’s
natural genius. One of Kafka’s last writings deals with this. In November 1919, when we were
living together in Schelesen near Liboch, he wrote a very circumstantial “Letter to my Father.” It
is hardly a work that one can call a letter anymore, it is a short book, but one that cannot yet be
published- at the same time it is certainly one of the most remarkable and, for all its simplicity
of style, one of the most difficult documents dealing with a life-struggle.

Hannah Strokesii: Kafka often described his relationship with his father, Hermann Kafka, as a
process and legal terms such as “judgement”, “sentence” and “guilt” feature repeatedly in the
letter. Kafka was interested in systems of social control, and in the brief he criticizes his father
as a ruler and judge of the family. Themes are dealt with one by one and incude “upbringing,
Judaism, [Kafka’s] existence as a writer, occupation, sexuality and marriage”. It begins with---

Franz Kafka:

Dearest Father,

You asked me recently why I claim to be afraid of you. I did not know, as usual, how to answer,
partly for the very reason that I am afraid of you, partly because an explanation of my fear
would require more details than I could even begin to make coherent in speech. And if I now try
to answer it in writing it will still be nowhere near complete, because even in writing it will still
be nowhere near complete, because even in writing my fear and its consequences raise a
barrier between us and because the magnitude of material far exceeds my memory and my
understanding.

[semiotic chain, sounds of white noise, sounds of backtrack]

Understanding---

Memory---

Barrier---

Dearest Father--- ahbuji!

Masama yan!

Coherent in speech---

Gusto ko pa maglaro!

Afraid of you---

Why---

I claim---

Creep!

i
Author of Franz Kafka’s Biography. His most trusted friend.
ii
Editor and translator of Dearest Father.