Letter to my Father

Franz Kafka was 36 years old when he wrote this letter to his father, at the time when he was planning to marry Julie Wohryzeck. At this decisive moment and through the writing of this letter, he reviews his life, his childhood fears and attempts to establish a new relationship with his father who is against this marriage. However this effort to make sense of a series of misunderstandings accumulated over 36 years with his father is destined to failure. Kafka knew this and the letter was never actually delivered into his father’s hands. His work here is about something else, it is an attempt to save himself through his writing. It is a way of healing the wounded interior of a child who has become an adult and is about to marry and probably become a father himself. Jean-Quentin Châtelain immediately accepted the leading role in « Letter to My Father » when Jean-Yves Ruf offered it to him. Both men had held this message in their hearts for a long time but had put off the moment of truth offered by this 50 page letter which cannot leave any son in this world indifferent.