The shocking letter from a son to his father – by the author of The Metamorphosis and The Trial and one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. At the end of 1919, at the age of 36 and following an intense argument with his parents, Franz Kafka writes this letter in an attempt to settle accounts with his authoritarian father, the man who appears in his eyes as utterly tyrannical and omnipotent. The letter, which never reached its intended recipient, is the most complete and significant autobiographical testimony left by Kafka. It captures the psyche of the author, who dissects with an utterly penetrating gaze his relationship with his father and its disastrous impact. A personal, tender, and sensitive text, which simultaneously possesses particular rhetorical and literary value, holding a special place not only in Kafka's oeuvre but also in world literature.