The letter is a rope. On translation of life into writing in Franz Kafka’s epistolary

Abstract

The essay attempts to discuss the concept of existential translation through Kafka’s epistolary writing. In this sense, writing represents the possibility of translating the self into words, which in the letter can be addressed to others, a dynamics that constitutes a solid foothold on which to stand in life. Some of the points of the correspondence that converge with this theme are retraced, with particular reference to the letters to friends and to Milena Jesenská. The basic idea is that Kafka suggested an important aspect of human existence: being connected, protected, supported by the figures of otherness through writing, which at the same time becomes a instrument of self-translation to each other and the possibility of communication and sharing. This is an aspect that is very evident in consideration of the fact that, for Kafka, relationships acquire their authenticity in writing,
so that letter properly becomes the essence of the self transfigured in words.