Milan Kundera – författare

The bestselling modern classic for fans of Dostoyevsky's White Nights and Sabahattin Ali'sMadonna in a Fur Coat: the iconic novel of love, angst and politics in communist Czechoslovakia.A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon: a man torn between his love for her and his womanising. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals, while her other lover stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities. In a world where lives are shaped by choices and events, and everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance and weight - and we feel 'the unbearable lightness of being'.Kundera's classic provoked a whole generation, encompassing passion and philosophy, body and soul, the Prague Spring and modern America, political acts and private desires, comedy and tragedy - in fact, all of human existence.What readers are saying:'Some books change your mind, some change your heart, the very best change your whole world ... A mighty piece of work, that will shape your life forever.''One of the best books I've ever read ... A book about love and life, full of surprises. Beautiful.''This book is going to change your life ... It definitely leaves you with a hangover after you're done reading.''Kundera writes about love as if in a trance so the beauty of it is enchanting and dreamy ... Will stay with you.''Shamelessly clever ... Exhilaratingly subversive and funny.' Independent'A modern classic ... As relevant now as when it was first published. ' John Banville

A philosophical masterpiece by the author of modern classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being.'An artist, clearly one of the best to be found anywhere.' Salman Rushdie'Kundera designs fictions of the highest order.' Ian McEwanChantal awaits her partner in a hotel on the Normandy coast, struggling to find him on a crowded beach. After mistaking him for a stranger, they reunite, and she reveals her fears of men no longer turning to look at her. Soon, she begins to receive mysterious love letters, which she hides in her underwear drawer - but as the border between fantasy and reality blurs, perhaps the secret correspondent is someone closer to her than she realises?In this disquieting love story, Kundera reveals our shifting perceptions of selfhood over time, especially within the intimacy of a relationship - and makes us question our own existence.

The New York Times bestseller by the author of modern classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being.'Like all great writers, Kundera leaves indelible marks on his readers' imaginations.' Salman Rushdie From a playful gesture between an old woman in a swimming pool and a youthful lifeguard springs the heroine of a novel: Agnès. In the course of her daily life - Saturday chores, saunas, lunch in the hectic Paris streets - memories arise of her dead father, an unexpected widower. Their conversations flood back, and Agnès realises that her secret inheritance was his way of granting her freedom. As she mentally revisits her childhood, from formative loves to her intense relationship with her sister, her past casts light on her present: her marriage, daughter, and eventual death.Exploring identity and existence, eroticism and modernity - with cameos from Goethe, Dali, Hemingway, and beyond - Immortality illuminates the nature of selfhood with inimitable wit, grace and intellectual nimbleness. 'A serial feast, a banquet for the brain.' Observer'A joy to read. Wise, rueful, whimsically philosophical, Kundera teases the reader with provocations and paradoxes.' Evening Standard

The debut by author of modern classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being, of which Salman Rushdie said: 'It is impossible to do justice here to the subtleties, comedy and wisdom of this very beautiful novel.'' A funny, sad, gripping, wise, marvellous book.' Sunday TimesLudvik returns to his hometown a bitter man with a single aim: to do unto others what has been done to him. Expelled from the Communist Party as a student for a youthful joke, he has spent years exiled to a bleak labour camp. awaiting his chance for revenge on those who betrayed him - and one-time friends, lovers and comrades soon become entwined in his machinations as he devises the perfect plan . . . Kundera's iconoclastic debut novel was a sensation during the Prague Spring: later banned, it launched his worldwide literary reputation, and its passionate exploration of humour, censorship and individualism is even more powerful over half a century later.

An invigorating novelistic essay, rich in literary wisdom, from the international superstar author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being.'A masterpiece.' Independent'Nothing so much as a gauntlet, thrown down by Kundera for both novelists and their readers to pick up - if we dare. ' ObserverStravinsky and Kafka meet with their friends Ansermet and Brod; Hemingway with his biographer; Janácek with his little nation; and Rabelais with his heirs. In Kundera's unique essay written in the form of a novel, our greatest novelists become characters who repeatedly cross paths, shedding light on the great aesthetic questions of our time along the way. Through their wise encounters, we explore the moral trials of twentieth century culture; the boundaries between past and present; the twilight of individualism; and the betrayed testaments of European art. Characteristically rich in revelatory ideas about the time in which we live, eloquently exposing how we have become who we are, this is a landmark work from a legendary writer and critic.

'A masterpiece' (Salman Rushdie) by the author of modern classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being.'It took the temperature of the age as no other book did. It was the great novel of the end of European Communism: a novel of ideas and eroticism, the surreal and the naturalistic.' Howard Jacobson'One is torn between profound pleasure in the novel's execution and wonder at the pain that inspired it.' Ian McEwan One freezing day in 1948, Klement Gottwald addresses Prague, wearing his comrade Clementis' fur cap - and Communist Czechoslovakia is born. But after being hanged for treason, Clementis is airbrushed out of propaganda photographs. All that remains is a bare wall, and his cap. So begins an unforgettable voyage through seven narratives, interspersed with luminous meditations on politics, philosophy, music and history.A dissident seeks his first lover - now a Party loyalist - to persuade her to return his romantic letters. A married couple manages their ménage-à-trois as Mother moves in. A clandestine horoscope writer is questioned. An émigré widow struggles to reconstruct memories of her late husband, before finding herself on an island of children. A butcher's wife embarks on an affair with a poetic student. And one man prepares to cross the border . . . What readers are saying:'Kundera embrace politics, sex, philosophy and history, with a seen-it-all cynicism that nevertheless manages to be fascinating and even uplifting ... It was addictive and fun, sexy and cool, easy to read, and made me feel brighter, switched on, and more alive.''You must read this novel. Can't tell you about it, you just have to do it yourself. Its bonkers-brilliant! Phantasmagoric originality like this comes very seldom in a reader's so-sweet life.''Kundera's unique writing style comes as a revelation ... This holds a special place in my reading history as the one book that I instantly began re-reading as soon as I finished it.''Absolutely enchanted me. It's such an unique novel. It speaks of so many things, from communism and regimes to love and art. For me personally, it is a perfect book.''I am not going to spoil the story here, but while the story is not supernatural in any way, it takes on a fantastical flavor, full of mysteries and strange emotions ... It is obvious that Kundera has thought a lot about life, about the meaning of life, and lets the reader in on his secrets.''Such a unique writer, Kundera! What a way he has to shine the brightest light on the deepest corners of human psyche.'

A heady, existential tale of seduction and romance by the author of modern classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being.'An artist, clearly one of the best to be found anywhere.' Salman Rushdie'Kundera designs fictions of the highest order.' Ian McEwan'Audacity, wit and sheer brilliance.' New York Times Book ReviewIn a French château on a midsummer's night, two tales of seduction entwine, separated in time by over two hundred years, but united in their quest for sensual pleasure. Through their romantic endeavors, a contemporary holidaymaker and eighteenth-century chevalier illustrate our era's obsession with the vulgar demon of speed - and the phenomenon of the dancer. Oscillating between the sublime and ridiculous, the historic and the modern, Kundera's first novel written in French is an enchanting libertine fantasy, radiant with intelligence and wisdom.

A dazzling tragicomic tale from the author of modern classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being.'Anyone reading Kundera's books is unlikely to forget them. They have an essential energy, a difference.' New Statesman'Kundera is a self-confessed hedonist in a world beset by politics . . . Marvellous.' Salman RushdieKlima, a celebrated jazz trumpeter, learns that a young nurse with whom he spent one brief night at a fertility spa is pregnant - and she has decided he is the father.Thus begins a whirlwind farce as he returns to the spa: an accelerating dance which unfolds over five madcap days, encompassing Klima's jealous wife, the nurse's equally jealous boyfriend, a fanatical gynaecologist, a rich American (at once Don Juan and saint) and an elderly political prisoner who is holding a farewell party before emigration.Posing serious philosophical questions with his inimitable blasphemous lightness, Farewell Waltz is perhaps the most purely entertaining of Kundera's novels, rich in black humour and profound human insights.

Befriend a budding poet and his adoring mother in this seductive early novel - winner of the Prix Médicis - by the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being.'An artist, clearly one of the greatest to be found anywhere.' Salman Rushdie'Kundera's achievement has been to bring both private life and political life into one comic framework.' Ian McEwanYoung Jaromil knows he is special; in fact, he is a poet bestowed with literary genius, heir to Rimbaud. He knows this because his adoring mother told him so.Adult Jaromil, still revelling in these truths, draws on his talents to find romance whilst making his mark on the world through both his poetry and advancing the Communist revolution.Son, Poet, Lover. In which of these roles does Jaromil's true existence lie?A blazingly satirical reflection on the 'lyrical age' of youthful innocence, this ironic epic of adolescence showcases Kundera's savage yet tender wit at its finest.

A dazzling collection of stories - originally banned in 1968 Prague - by a 'magnificent short-story writer' (NYT) and author of classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being.'Kundera is a self-confessed hedonist in a world beset by politics . . . Marvellous.' Salman Rushdie'Kundera's achievement has been to bring both private life and political life into one comic framework.' Ian McEwanOn holiday, a man and his girlfriend pretend she is a hitchhiking stranger - but their game soon makes them strangers to each other.One young man reconnects with his grieving former lover, only to be shocked by her ageing body.Two friends embark on an obsessive mission to seduce as many women as possible in the Eternal Chase.A teacher fakes piety to seduce a devoutly religious girl: then jilts her and yearns for God. In these celebrated stories, Kundera probes our darkest erotic impulses and most destructive sexual fantasies - while seducing us with his graceful, whimsical prose.