"Splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come. This is the essence of magic, which does not create, but summons." --Franz Kafka, Diaries, October 18, 1921

The Magical Mystery Literary History Tour was aptly named. Beginning the first day and culminating the last one, the Kafka Project's mission in Eastern Europe has been smiled on by the mysterious forces that moved me to undertake it. As I compile the results of the research for a final report, I'd like to tell you about only two of the forty days: the first and the last. Then you tell me if you think magic is afoot! 

We left San Diego on June 15 (see Episode #1 Magical Literary History Tour) and landed in Prague the next day, June 16. When we arrived at our hotel, Judita Matyasova, an impish 29-year old Czech woman with her own Franz Kafka project, was waiting for me with a reporter from a leading Czech newspaper. Lucie Bartosova, pictured at center below, an editor at Lidove Noviny, was the first of three sets of journalists and photographers we met with that afternoon.

Following our interview, Lucie told me that she read my book in a library a few years ago, but always wanted her own copy, which she had just received from England a few days earlier. As she leafed through it again, she thought: "I'd love to meet the author." The next day, she learned I was coming to town and got the assignment to interview me.

We have arrived! We are in Prague, the city of Franz Kafka's birth, the majestic city of towers, bridges, and winding cobblestone streets. Wish you were here too!

Well, you can be. You can come along with us on the "Magical Mystery Literary History Tour" online and follow our adventures over the next 10 days with 22 intrepid travelers, as we visit ancient castle towns and the cultural and royal capitals of Eastern Europe. Our first destination is Prague, which we will explore over the next three days. Next we will visit Krakow, the cultural capital of Poland for two days, and then we travel on to the capital of Germany, Berlin, where we will stay for three more nights, until the tour ends on June 24.

The Magical Mystery Literary History Tour is the kick-off for the Kafka Project's Eastern European Research Project, which I'm conducting this summer in Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Kafka Project, based at San Diego State University, is the official investigation into the missing papers (consisting of 20 notebooks and 35 letters, all unpublished) of Franz Kafka (pictured), one of the most influential figures in world literature. Confiscated by the Gestapo in Berlin in 1933 from Kafka's last love, Dora Diamant, these papers have been missing for 75 years, but it is possible that they can be found, if we look for them.

I first came to Prague in 1985, when it was under Communist rule. I haven't been back since 1991, shortly after the Velvet Revolution, when it still remained untouched by the modern world. On my first two visits, I fell in love with this strange castle city of a hundred spires and dark, twisted alleys, where Kafka lived and was buried. Even without the perpetual San Diego sunshine I so love, I wanted to move here and live here forever. I admit I'm anxious to see how much it has changed since then.