The present times of planes falling, summers boiling and missiles raining hold more relevance to Kafka's words than the last century in which he wrote them. The world today feels no less absurd, alienating or fragile. We scroll past devastation. We swipe through affection. We ghost and are ghosted. We fear being seen, yet ache to be known.

In an age when love is often reduced to emojis and double-taps, Franz Kafka's Letters to Milena remind us of a time when affection was poured out in ink — raw, desperate and undiluted. These letters, written between 1920 and 1923 to Czech journalist and translator Milena Jesenská, are a series of writings drenched in pain, longing and the unbearable beauty of unfulfilled connection.

Ironically, I found myself reading those letters as missiles began hitting West Asia. Nuclear threats loom, not as far-off fears but as tangible possibilities. World powers posture like overlords in some modern-day Coliseum, eager to turn suffering into spectacle. Like the ancient Athenians who gathered to watch........

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