Kafka and Milena
A Love Story between Prague and Vienna
“Writing letters is actually an intercourse with ghosts…Written kisses never arrive at their destination; the ghosts drink them up along the way.”
— Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena
Franz Kafka was born in Prague in July 1883. The name Kafka is Czech by origin, and in its correct form, Kavka means jackdaw, a bird that has a big head and a beautiful tail. Most of Kafka's work gained literary fame posthumously thanks to his lifelong friend Max Brod.
Milena Jesenka was born in Prague in 1896. Her father was a dental surgeon and professor at Charles University in Prague; She studied at Minerva, the first academic gymnasium for girls in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After graduation, she enrolled briefly at the Prague Conservatory and the Faculty of Medicine but abandoned her…
