His very name - Kafka - would become a synonym for a world turned upside down by surreal predicaments. His stories and novels, however, were destined to become some of the best-loved writings of the 20th century, exploring themes of loss, grief and existential anxiety in a rapidly changing world. “My travels have changed me.” The little girl hugged the new doll and carried her home.įranz Kafka died a short time later from tuberculosis. “I have been out in the world,” the doll wrote. To ease her confusion, he read the girl a final letter from her doll explaining why she seemed so different. When their meetings finally came to an end, Kafka presented the girl with a new doll that didn’t look anything like the original. The letters provided deep comfort to the little girl. Over the days and weeks that followed, he presented a stream of “letters” that recounted the doll’s amazing encounters with interesting people she’d met on her journey through the world. I will write to you about my adventures.” “Please do not mourn for me,” the doll wrote.

Upon his return, he presented the girl with a letter he insisted was written by her missing doll. Hoping to console her, he suggested that they meet the next day and continue the search. The writer, known for stories that fused realism and fantasy, suggested that the two of them search for the missing doll, but the doll was nowhere to be found.

The Bohemian novelist and short-story writer Franz Kafka was walking home through a park in Prague one afternoon when he passed a little girl who was crying because she’d lost her favorite doll. But it had been many years since I thought of it and the wise soul who first shared it with me decades ago. She wondered if I’d ever heard it before. On a lovely evening beneath the trees not long ago, as summer green gave way to autumn gold, my wife, Wendy, shared a charming little story a friend had recently passed along to her via email.

Summer wrise soul