Milan Kundera (1929–2023)

Author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being

76+ Works 55,583 Members 634 Reviews 344 Favorited

About the Author

One of the foremost contemporary Czech writers, Kundera is a novelist, poet, and playwright. His play The Keeper of the Keys, produced in Czechoslovakia in 1962, has long been performed in a dozen countries. His first novel, The Joke (1967), is a biting satire on the political atmosphere in show more Czechoslovakia in the 1950s. It tells the story of a young Communist whose life is ruined because of a minor indiscretion: writing a postcard to his girlfriend in which he mocks her political fervor.The Joke has been translated into a dozen languages and was made into a film, which Kundera wrote and directed. His novel Life Is Elsewhere won the 1973 Prix de Medicis for the best foreign novel. Kundera has been living in France since 1975. His books, for a long time suppressed in his native country, are once again published.The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), won him international fame and was a successful English-language film. In this work Kundera moves toward more universal and philosophically tinged themes, thus transforming himself from a political dissident into a writer of international significance. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Includes the names: M. Kundera, Mila Kundera, Milan Kundara, Milan Kundera, Milan Kundera, Milan Kundera, Milan Kendera, 米蘭．昆德拉, Milan Kundera et al., Milan (1929) KINDERA, מילן קונדרה, ميلان كوندرا, ミラン・クンデラ, ميلان كونديرا, ميلان كونديرا, Милан Кундера, Milan; Translated from Kundera

Image credit: Photo by Fridrik Rafusson, courtesy of Faber Books

Works by Milan Kundera

Popular Recent

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1983) 22,449 copies

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979) 6,124 copies

Immortality (1990) 4,533 copies

The Joke (1969) 3,807 copies

Laughable Loves (1968) 2,909 copies

L'ignorance (2000) 2,355 copies

Identity (1997) 2,318 copies

Slowness (1995) 2,261 copies

Life Is Elsewhere (1986) 2,237 copies

The Farewell Party (1972) 1,934 copies

The Art of the Novel (1986) 1,643 copies

Testaments Betrayed: An Essay in Nine Parts (1993) 855 copies

The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts (2006) 733 copies

The Festival of Insignificance (2013) 637 copies

Encounter: Essays (2009) 312 copies

Jacques & His Master (1981) 273 copies

A Kidnapped West: The Tragedy of Central Europe (2021) 44 copies

Let the Old Dead Make Room for the New Dead (2019) 20 copies

Kundera, oeuvre, coffret en 2 volumes : Tome 1 et tome 2 (1899) 19 copies

The Church of England in the Mid-nineteenth Century: A Social Geography (Historical Association pamphlets) (1980) 17 copies

Kundera : Œuvre (Tome 1) (2011) 10 copies

Het brute gebaar van de schilder (2006) 5 copies

The Hitchhiking Game 4 copies

Eduard and God [short story] 4 copies

Hebbes 5 (2002) 4 copies

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (Writers from the Other Europe) by Milan Kundera (1981-11-19) Paperback 3 copies

L'insostenibile leggerezza dell'essere 3 copies

Monology 3 copies

Poslední máj 3 copies

Slowness / Identity / Ignorance (2005) 3 copies

MOS DIJA 2 copies

The Curtain / Testaments Betrayed / The Art of the Novel (2006) 2 copies

The Unbearable Lightness of Being / The Farewell Waltz / Immortality (2011) 2 copies

Um Ocidente sequestrado. Ou a tragedia da Europa Central (Em Portugues do Brasil) (2019) 2 copies

Quatre-vingt-neuf mots / Prague, poème qui disparaît (2023) 2 copies

Praznik beznacajnosti (2016) 2 copies

Il libro del riso e dell’oblio (2022) 2 copies

Hecc (2022) 2 copies

Slowness / Identity (2002) 2 copies

The Golden Apple of Eternal Desire 2 copies

Zahradou těch, které mám rád (2014) 2 copies

The Art of Fiction - contemporary classic CLASSIC50 of(Chinese Edition) (2000) 2 copies

Milan Kundera works series - as(Chinese Edition) (2000) 2 copies

De dood zal me omhelzen bij de jasmijn (1987) 2 copies

Zneuznávané dědictví Cervantesovo (2005) 2 copies

La Inmortalidad 1 copy

Můj Janáček (2004) 1 copy

L’identità (Italian Edition) 1 copy

玩笑 (2014) 1 copy

Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (April 30,1984) 1 copy

MAZAK 1 copy

Die unerträgliche Leichtigkeit des Seins / Die Unsterblichkeit / Die Identität. (2002) 1 copy

Urlaubsträume. Geschichten für die schönste Zeit des Jahres 1 copy

Člověk, zahrada širá: verše 1 copy

الوصايا المغدورة (2015) 1 copy

حفلة التفاهة (2014) 1 copy

المزحة (2014) 1 copy

Immortality by Milan Kundera (1991-04-03) 1 copy

MajitelÃ© klÃÄÅ¯ : Hra o jednom dÄjstvÃ se ÄtyÅmi vizemi 1 copy

Mein Jahrhundertbuch (4): "Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften" von Robert Musil (Die Zeit, 21. Januar 1999) 1 copy

Caixa o Universo de Milan Kundera - 5 Títulos 1 copy

Baqai dawam 1 copy

Básnický almanach 1959 1 copy

The Joke by Milan Kundera (1992-08-21) 1 copy

1987 1 copy

A Vida é, por si mesma, um paradoxo - eBook 1 copy

Vô tri 1 copy

La despedida 1 copy

A Ignorância [ Livre importé d´Espagne ] 1 copy

කොළොප්පම (2005) 1 copy

Die unerträgliche Leichtigkeit des Seins - Erläuterungen und Materialien (2004) 1 copy

ජීවිතය අන් තැනක 1 copy

Kniha sm©Ưchu a zapomn♯n©Ư : rom©Łn (2017) 1 copy

MILAN KUNDERA set of 3 books - 1 signed (Easton Press) Unbearable Lightness of Being, - SIGNED, Book of Laughter and… (2016) 1 copy

Jakub a jeho pán : pocta Denisi Diderotovi o třech jednáních (2020) 1 copy

الستارة (2015) 1 copy

Work Explorer

Associated Works

My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead (2008) — Contributor — 763 copies

Terra Nostra (1975) — Afterword, some editions — 684 copies

The World of the Short Story: A 20th Century Collection (1986) — Contributor — 463 copies

Granta 78: Bad Company (2002) — Contributor — 135 copies

The Gates of Paradise (1993) — Contributor — 113 copies

Magical Realist Fiction: An Anthology (1984) — Contributor — 113 copies

Soul: An Archaeology--Readings from Socrates to Ray Charles (1994) — Contributor — 101 copies

Granta 17: While Waiting for a War (1985) — Contributor — 81 copies

The Unbearable Lightness of Being [1988 film] (1988) — Original book — 80 copies

The Grim Reader: Writings on Death, Dying, and Living On (1997) — Contributor — 60 copies

Granta 11: Greetings From Prague (1984) — Contributor — 60 copies

Granta 13: After the Revolution (1984) — Contributor — 54 copies

The Wall in My Head: Words and Images from the Fall of the Iron Curtain (2009) — Contributor — 54 copies

Granta 6: A Literature for Politics (1990) — Contributor — 41 copies

The Penguin Book of Twentieth-Century Protest (1998) — Contributor — 31 copies

One World of Literature (1992) — Contributor — 24 copies

Writers From the Other Europe (4 Volume Set) (1979) — Author — 21 copies

Miracle en Bohême (1978) — Preface, some editions — 4 copies

Notions de base: proses (2005) — Preface, some editions — 2 copies

Le Débat, numéro 27 (novembre 1983) (1983) — Contributor — 1 copy

Tagged

1001 (148) 1001 books (160) 20th century (645) anthology (158) classic (143) classics (153) communism (250) Czech (1,266) Czech fiction (212) Czech literature (1,166) Czech Republic (310) Czechoslovakia (445) Eastern Europe (156) essays (292) existentialism (161) fiction (5,406) France (160) French (175) Kundera (269) literary criticism (182) literary fiction (138) literature (1,279) love (342) Milan Kundera (197) narrativa (152) non-fiction (211) novel (1,207) Novela (200) own (188) owned (144) philosophy (546) Prague (168) read (531) Roman (424) romance (148) short stories (425) to-read (2,138) translated (174) translation (312) unread (269)

Common Knowledge

Canonical name: Kundera, Milan
Legal name: Kundera, Milan
Birthdate: 1929-04-01
Date of death: 2023-07-11
Gender: male
Nationality: Czechoslovakia (birth)
France (naturalized | 1981)
Country (for map): Czech Republic
Birthplace: Brno, Czechoslovakia
Place of death: Paris, France
Places of residence: Brno, Czech Republic (birth)
Paris, France
Education: Academy of Performing Arts Prague (BA|1952|Film Faculty)
Charles University, Prague (Literature ∙ Aesthetics)
Occupations: novelist
lecturer
Relationships: Kundera, Ludvík (cousin)
Hrabankova, Vera (wife)
Organizations: Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (expelled and readmitted)
University of Rennes
Academy of Performing Arts
Awards and honors: Austrian State Prize for European Literature (1987)
Jerusalem Prize (1985)
American Academy of Arts and Letters (1986)
Herder Prize (2000)
Czech State Literature Prize (2007)
Man Booker International Prize Finalist (2005) (show all 12)
Jaroslav Seifert Prize (1994)
Vilenica International Literary Prize (1992)
Grand Prix de Littérature de l'Académie française (2001)
Slovenian Golden Order of Merit (2021)
Ovid Prize (2011)
Franz Kafka Prize (2020)

Members

Discussions

Group Read, February 2015: The Unbearable Lightness of Being in 1001 Books to read before you die (March 2015)

September 2013: "Die unerträgliche Leichtigkeit des Seins" von Milan Kundera in Online-Lesekreis (October 2013)

unbearable lightness of being in 1001 Books to read before you die (November 2007)

Reviews

Ignorance by Milan Kundera

This was a book which chimed with my difficult emotions at the moment, as I stuggle with leaving a counttry where I'm happy, to return to one that is quite simply, 'home'. Kundera explores the complex yet changing feelings surrounding 'nostalgie du pays', which doesn't feel to me quite the same as homesickness. He refers to Ulysses long odysssey and to many others who've been willingly or unwillingly away from 'home'. His story centres round Irena and Josef, both voluntary exiles from their native Czech Republic, each of whom briefly returns after many years absence. Absence, memory, nostalgia all form part of the surge of feelings each experiences. But do their feelings match each other's, or what they thought they'd feel?

A subtle, intelligent and absorbing short novel.… (more)

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Margaret09 | 36 other reviews | Apr 15, 2024 |