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“Quite well. Astounded. As I usually am in this house.”

And then I said something totally redundant. Still, I had to say it.

“What did you want to tell me, Eva?”

But she only said, “Now you know,” and again she clasped her hands, the hands that played the piano so magically, over mine.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR OF THE JOURNALS OF K

The English version of Journals of K, translated from the Czech, is Katya Langbrot’s first book. She lives in Prague with her husband, a documentary filmmaker, and their son Jiri-Diamant, a grandson of K on his father’s side and, on his mother’s side, a great-great-grandson of the famous writer. The journals, unknown for decades and hidden by the writer, were presented to Katya as a wedding gift by her great-grandfather, who, after the ceremony in the Altneushul, walked over to the Holy Ark and, from a secret panel, removed the notebooks. Katya is now working on Volume Two.

The English version of Journals

is dedicated

to

the memory of

my grand-uncle

Jiri Krupka-Weisz

and

my mother-in-law

Dora Diamant

ABOUT CURT LEVIANT

Curt Leviant is author of nine critically acclaimed works of fiction. He has won the Edward Lewis Wallant Award and writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Jerusalem Foundation, the Emily Harvey Foundation in Venice, and the New Jersey Arts Council. His work has been included in Best American Short Stories, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, and other anthologies, and praised by Nobel laureates Saul Bellow and Elie Wiesel.

Leviant’s novels have been translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Romanian, and other languages, and some of these works in translation have become international bestsellers. Kafka’s Son was published in French in 2009 to considerable acclaim.