致父亲的信 (1952)

致父亲的信（德语：Brief an den Vater）是德语作家法兰兹·卡夫卡在1919年11月写给其父亲，赫尔曼·卡夫卡的信。

该信于1952年卡夫卡死后首次发布在文学杂志The Neue Rundschau上，被认为是用于理解卡夫卡作品的关键文本之一，且是卡夫卡一生中唯一完成的自传性文本。

据卡夫卡的好友马克斯·布罗德所说，卡夫卡将信交给了他的母亲，并想让她转交给他的父亲（但她并没有这样做）。这封信原件长达45页，由卡夫卡用打字机写出并手写修改，额外有两页半是完全手写的。然而，另有一版本长达103页的手稿是完全手写的，而该版本的笔迹也被辨认为是卡夫卡的。

内容

在信中，卡夫卡针对其童年成长、工作业务、犹太信仰、卡夫卡的写作、家庭、婚姻等主题都作出了探讨。

与卡夫卡的大部分作品一样，卡夫卡在《致父亲的信》对于法律和秩序的观点提供了独特的理解角度。信中反复出现了“审判”、“判决”或“有罪”等法律术语。卡夫卡将他的父亲比喻为家中的统治者以及法官。

Letter to His Father (German: Brief an den Vater) is the name given to a letter Franz Kafka wrote to his father, Hermann, in November 1919.

History

According to Max Brod, Kafka gave the letter to his mother to deliver to his father but she never did. The original letter, 45 pages long, was typewritten by Kafka and corrected by hand. Two and a half additional pages were written by hand.

In 1954, the letter, translated into English by Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins, was published by Schocken Books in Dearest Father: Stories and Other Writings. In 1966, Schocken Books published the same translation in a bilingual edition.

A new translation by Hannah and Richard Stokes was published by Oneworld Classics in 2008 under the title Dearest Father.

Extracts from the letter, translated by Sophie Prombaum, are included in A Franz Kafka Miscellany.

The letter begins as follows: "Dearest Father, You asked me recently why I maintain that I am afraid of you. As usual, I was unable to think of any answer to your question, partly for the very reason that I am afraid of you, and partly because an explanation of the grounds for this fear would mean going into far more details than I could even approximately keep in mind while talking. And if I now try to give you an answer in writing, it will still be very incomplete."

Editions

Letter to the Father. Bilingual edition. New York: Schocken Books, 1966. Translated by Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins.

Dearest Father. Oneworld Classics, 2008. ISBN 978-1-84749-025-4. Translated by Hannah and Richard Stokes.

Letter to the Father. Prague: Vitalis Verlag, 1998. Translated by Karen Reppin. Reissued in 2013 with drawings by Franz Kafka. ISBN 978-80-7253-344-2.

The following collections include Kafka's Letter to His Father (Kaiser and Wilkins translation):

Dearest Father. Stories and Other Writings. New York: Schocken Books, 1954.

The Sons. New York: Schocken Books, 1989.