• Story: Franz Kafka
• Drawings: Larissa Theule & Rebecca Green
• Publisher: Viking Books For Young Readers
• Publishing year: 2021
• Number of pages: 48
• ISBN: 978-0593116326

Review:

This little graphic novel/children’s book came on my path due to two Booksta-friends (thank you Tina & Thomas) and because 2024 is Kafka-year plus I’ve had planned on finally reading his work or books about him or things like this graphic novel based on his life or his work, I needed it badly!

During the last years Kafka was alive he lived with Dora Diamant, his last lover, in Berlin, in several locations. One of these houses was across from Stadtpark Steglitz where he often went for a walk, before he got too sick to even do walks and before he moved away again.

One day he met a little girl who was sad and crying and he asked her what was wrong, to which the little girl replied: “I lost my doll, Soupsy”. Kafka never had children of his own and was touched by her sadness, so he told her Soupsy went on a hiking trip to discover the world and that he has a letter from the doll for the girl, whose name was Irma.

And Kafka started writing letters to Irma, supposedly from Soupsy, in which he lets het have all sorts of adventures in locations all over the world: Paris, London, Egypt… Irma waited every day for Kafka to bring her a letter. But due to Kafka’s illness he had to cut the story short and write one last definitive letter to Irma in which Soupsy tells her she won’t be able to write anymore… Kafka died shortly after, leaving Irma and Dora behind.

It is this story, this true story, that was adapted in this beautifully illustrated hardcover graphic novel! The illustrations by Theule and Green are so beautiful, so honest, so uncomplicated and show us the true love Kafka had for words and for comforting a little girl who is sad for losing a doll. It definitely shows a different side from him than what he had written before. Was his approaching death making him more mellow, softer, less critical?

Let Kafka and both illustrators take you on a journey and to an undisclosed ending of where Soupsy might go…