"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, because, even in writing, this fear and its consequences hamper me in relation to you and because the magnitude of the subject goes far beyond the scope of my memory and power of reasoning."

In November 1919, Franz Kafka wrote a letter to his father, where Kafka tries to open up about his father's emotional abuse and hypocritical behavior and the effect it had on him. It was around this time that father and son had reached a low-point, over Kafka's recent engagement and their disagreement on it. Kafka had given the letter to his mother to be forwarded to his father. His mother never delivered the letter, fearing that things were beyond the possibility of making amends in between father and son, and returned it back to Kafka.

In the letter, Kafka calls out his father on his demanding and authoritarian nature, and his hypocrisy. The words are full of raw emotion and anguish.



A personal note: I began reading the letter around the time when I was sleepless for 48 hours after my father had been taken into intensive care. It was quite a surreal experience.