London CNN —A letter giving a rare insight into Franz Kafka’s struggle with writer’s block is going up for auction. This means it would have been written while Kafka was undergoing treatment for tuberculosis, with which he was diagnosed three years earlier. Ehrenstein made the request after seeing a newly published work by Kafka – probably the 1919 short story collection “Ein Landarzt” (“A Country Doctor”). We can also all be thankful that Kafka would continue to pick up his pen despite his crippling writer’s block,” he added. At the time the letter was written, Kafka had also begun an intense love affair with Czech journalist and writer Milena Jesenská.

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Persons: Franz Kafka’s, Franz Kafka, Kafka, Sotheby's, what’s, ” Kafka, Albert Ehrenstein, “, Sotheby’s, Ehrenstein, Kafka –, Landarzt, Gabriel Heaton, Milena Jesenská, – Organizations: London CNN, Pictorial Press Locations: Prague, Bohemia, Sotheby’s, London, Vienna, Austrian, Czech, ”, Germany, Austria