Letters and Papers

Dora's Papers

Dora's cahier, or diary, missing for almost 50 years, was uncovered, along with 15 letters to Marthe Robert, Kafka's French translator, written between 1951-1952, in Paris. Two years later, a second diary was discovered by Klaus Wagenbach, which had laid forgotten in archive in Berlin. These diaries, written in the last year of her life, represent Dora's attempt to "say once what is necessary to say about Kafka. Everything. Without reservation." In January 2000, working with professional archival researchers, Dora's secret 35-page file from the Comintern in the Central Archives of the Communist Party in Moscow was obtained.

Page 9 of Dora's diary, begun on her birthday in 1951, when she learned she was dying.
May not be reprinted without permission.
© Diamant Family

Kafka's Letters

In 2004, three original Kafka letters, written in 1921 and 1924 in Berlin to Ludwig Hardt, were found in private hands in Tierrasanta, in San Diego, California. Before the owners decided to sell the letters at auction, copies of the originals were made and given to the Kafka Project and to the Critical Edition Archives at Wuppertal, Germany.

One of Kafka's favorite books, Hebel's Schatzkaestlein, published in 1859, with a personal inscription by Kafka, sold at auction in 2005.

© Kafka Estate
May not be reprinted without permission.