Milan Kundera and the Carnivalesque examines Kundera's fiction through the lens of Bakhtinian carnival theory, tracing how laughter, myth, and bodily grotesque become weapons against totalitarian certainty. Moving from the demonic comedy of meaninglessness to the fragility of historical memory, and from the kitsch aesthetics of authoritarian power to the paranoia lurking beneath them, this book reveals the carnivalesque as the organizing principle of Kundera's literary and political imagination.

Milan Kundera and the Carnivalesque examines Kundera's fiction through the lens of Bakhtinian carnival theory, tracing how laughter, myth, and bodily grotesque become weapons against totalitarian certainty. Moving from the demonic comedy of meaninglessness to the fragility of historical memory, and from the kitsch aesthetics of authoritarian power to the paranoia lurking beneath them, this book reveals the carnivalesque as the organizing principle of Kundera's literary and political imagination.

Milan Kundera and the Carnivalesque examines Kundera's fiction through the lens of Bakhtinian carnival theory, tracing how laughter, myth, and bodily grotesque become weapons against totalitarian certainty. Moving from the demonic comedy of meaninglessness to the fragility of historical memory, and from the kitsch aesthetics of authoritarian power to the paranoia lurking beneath them, this book reveals the carnivalesque as the organizing principle of Kundera's literary and political imagination.