Synopses & Reviews
Widely known for her (largely epistolary) romance with Franz Kafka and as the addressee of his
Letters to Milena, Milena Jesenska was a prominent journalist and translator, one of the most famous women in 1930s Prague. This intimate biography by her daughter charts her stormy and colorful life from her rebellious childhood through her literary and political activities to her concentration camp imprisonment by the Nazis.
Kafka's Milena was rushed into publication in Prague in 1969, just after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. This edition includes translations of several new letters and articles by Jesenska, including her obituary of Kafka and a wrenching letter from prison to her daughter.
About the Author
Jana Cerna was a teenager when her mother was killed at Ravensbruck.and#160; She died in 1981.and#160; A.G. Brain is the pseudonym for Alice and Gerry Turner, who have translated the work of numerous Czech writers, including Vaclav Havel and Ludvik Vaculik.and#160;
George Gibian, a native of Prague, is the Goldwin Smith Professor of Russian and Comparative Literature at Cornell University and editor and translator of The Man in the Black Coat: Russiaand#39;s Literature of the Absurd, also published by Northwestern.and#160;
Table of Contents
Who Was Milena?
by George Gibrian
Errata
List of Illustrations
Translatorsand#39; Note
Foreword
Kafkaand#39;s Milena
Appendix
Selections from Milena Jesenskandaacute;and#39;s workAn Obituary for Franz Kafka
A Letter to Dr. Karel Hoch
The Scarecrow of His Profession
Advertisements for Misery
People on the Promontory
Hundreds of Thousands Looking for No-Manand#39;s-Land
In No-Manand#39;s-Land
A Letter to Her Daughter, from Prison