The Trial of Kafka's Last Heiress
Eva Hoffe, who single-handedly waged the most high-profile trial over cultural heritage in recent Israeli memory, died in Tel Aviv on August 4, aged 84.
I came to know Eva two years ago, just as her eight-year battle, dense with dilemmas not only legal, but ethical and political, was reaching its climax in Israel’s Supreme Court. At stake: a trove of manuscripts which promised to shed new light on the uncanny world of Franz Kafka, the writer who etched the twentieth century’s most indelible fables of disorientation, absurdity, and faceless tyranny—the rare writer whose name became an adjective.