To Bergman, My Closest Friend
"The Oldest Existing Kafka Writing"
A note believed to be the oldest handwritten memo by writer Franz Kafka (1883?1924), written when he was 14 years old, has gone up for auction.
On the 12th (local time), the dpa news agency reported that an 1897 memo written by Kafka was put up for auction by the American auction house Bonhams. Bonhams stated that the memo, measuring 13.1 cm wide and 8.4 cm tall, contains the German text: "There is coming and going. Parting and often no reunion. Prague, November 20. Franz Kafka." This memo was written by Kafka to his closest friend at the time, philosopher Hugo Bergmann (1883?1975), during his school days.
Bonhams explained, "Kafka declared at Bergmann’s house that he would become a writer," adding, "This is the oldest existing writing left by Kafka at age fourteen." The auction house estimates the winning bid for the memo to be between $10,000 and $15,000 (approximately 14 million to 21 million KRW).
Kafka was born in Prague, now the capital of the Czech Republic, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As a Jew, he was fluent in Czech but grew up in the German-speaking Jewish community of Prague and wrote in German. His representative works include The Metamorphosis, The Trial, The Castle, and The Missing Person (later retitled America).
He died of tuberculosis at the age of 41 in 1924, and it is known that he requested his closest friend during his lifetime, Max Brod, to burn all his writings. However, Brod did not honor Kafka’s will and published several works. Kafka’s writings are famous for dealing with themes such as alienation, nihilism, and existentialism in modern society.
Earlier, last month, Kafka’s handwritten manuscript of the short story The First Sorrow and a letter sent to an editor were auctioned in Germany, fetching 286,000 euros (approximately 430 million KRW). Also, in July, the international auction house Sotheby’s held an auction in London, UK, for a letter Kafka sent to his friend Albert Ehrenstein. The estimated auction price was between ?70,000 and ?90,000 (approximately 123 million to 158 million KRW).
At the time he wrote this letter, Kafka was undergoing treatment for tuberculosis diagnosed three years earlier. In the letter to the Austrian poet Ehrenstein, Kafka lamented, "I have written nothing for three years," adding, "What is published now is old, and there are no other works, nor have I started writing anything new." He also confessed, "Worry penetrated a certain layer inside me, and when writing and complaining stopped, my resistance was not very strong."
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