Milan Kundera (1929 – )

Milan Kundera is the most successful and translated author to have come out of the Czech lands. Residing in France since 1975, Kundera hardly ever visits the Czech Republic and his overseas novels in French (Slowness, Identity, and Ignorance) have not been translated into his mother tongue as he sees himself the only one fit enough to translate them. His most famous novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1982) was not published in the Czech Republic until 2006, although the Canadian company 68 Publishers made sure it was published for Czech nationals living abroad. His career began with poetry and philosophical stories told in the works Laughable Loves (which some regard as his best work), The Joke (required reading in Czech schools), The Farewell Waltz and The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. The theme of Kundera’s writing usually centers on internal and external human freedom and responsibility.