Milan Kundera

Milan Kundera (1980)

Milan Kundera (UK: /ˈkʊndərə, ˈkʌn-/, 1 April 1929 – 11 July 2023) was a writer who was born in Czechoslovakia and wrote mainly in the Czech and French languages. He was best known as the writer of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, and Identity. The sale of his books in his home country was forbidden until the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia in 1989. Kundera lived in France from 1975 until his death.

Kundera died after a long-illness in Paris, France on 11 July 2023, at the age of 94.

Writing

A number of Kundera's novels appear to criticise totalitarianism and the impact of totalitarianism on art.

Bibliography

Poetry

• Man: A Wide Garden (Člověk zahrada širá) (1953)
• The Last May (Poslední máj) (1961) – celebration of Julius Fučík
• Monologues (Monology) (1965)

Essays

• About the Disputes of Inheritance (1955)
• The Art of the Novel: Vladislav Vančura's Path to the Great Epic (Umění románu: Cesta Vladislava Vančury za velkou epikou) (1960)
• The Czech Deal (Český úděl) (1968)
• Radicalism and Exhibitionism (Radikalismus a exhibicionismus) (1969)
• The Stolen West or The Tragedy of Central Europe (Únos západu aneb Tragédie střední Evropy) (1983)
• The Art of the Novel (L'art du Roman) (1986)
• Testaments Betrayed (Les testaments trahis) (1992)
• D'en bas tu humeras les roses (rare book in French, illustrated by Ernest Breleur) (1993)
• The Curtain (Le Rideau) (2005)
• Kastrující stín svatého Garty (Czech translation of part of Les testaments trahis) (2006)
• Une Recontre (2009)

Drama

• The Owner of the Keys (Majitelé klíčů) (1962)
• Two Ears, Two Weddings (Dvě uši, dvě svatby) (1968)
• The Blunder (Ptákovina) (1969)
• Jacques and His Master (Jakub a jeho pán: Pocta Denisu Diderotovi) (1971)

Fiction

• The Joke (Žert) (1967)
• Laughable Loves (Směšné lásky) (1969)
• The Farewell Waltz (Valčík na rozloučenou) (Original translation title: The Farewell Party) (1972)
• Life Is Elsewhere (Život je jinde) (1973)
• The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (Kniha smíchu a zapomnění) (1978)
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí) (1984)
• Immortality (Nesmrtelnost) (1990)
• Slowness (La Lenteur) (1993)
• Identity (L'Identité) (1998)
• Ignorance (Milan Kundera)|Ignorance (L'Ignorance) (2000)