Kafka's Last Love: The Mystery of Dora Diamant

Rating:
Summary: Dora Diamant: impressions
Review: There are many unknown facets of Kafka's life, and until any existing lost records (taken by the Gestapo, or destroyed by Kafka or Diamant) appear, the mysteries will continue. This book solves one of these mysteries, that of the intensity of Dora's brief (less than a year) relationship with Kafka, which was the defining and long-lasting event of her life. The narrative is quite fascinating, both in its revelations of Kafka, its insight into life as a European Jew in the 1st 1/2 of the 20th century, and in the depth of fixation on Kafka by Dora. Many of her distant relatives survive (apparently not the author) which provides a connection to the present. After Kafka's death, Dora's life was basically one of different intensities and levels of tragedy; a tradition followed by her only child who herself ended in madness and death. A "must read" for Kafkaphiles.