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 Par...

A provocative and rousing insight into European politics from one of the world's greatest writers.'One of his most powerful works.' Financial Times'A pan-European intellectual force.' TimesIn a moment of historic peril and uncertainty in mainland Europe, Milan Kundera makes the case for Central Europe as the nucleus of European values and as a lightning rod for its potential dangers.For the countries that ma...

With the same dazzling mix of emotion and idea that characterizes his novels he illuminates the art and artists who remain important to him and whose work helps us better understand the world. An astute and brilliant reader of fiction, Kundera applies these same gifts to the reading of Francis Bacon's paintings, Leos Janácek's music, the films of Federico Fellini, as well as to the novels of Philip Roth, Dostoyevsky, and García Márquez, among others. He also takes up the challenge of resto...

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.'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 holida...

Jacques and His Master is a deliciously witty and entertaining 'variation' on Diderot's novel Jacques le Fataliste, written for Milan Kundera's 'private pleasure' in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia. When the 'heavy Russian irrationality' fell on Czechoslovakia he felt drawn to the spirit of the eighteenth century - 'And it seemed to me that nowhere was it to be found more densely concentrated than in that banquet of intelligence, humour and fantasy, Jacques le Fatal...

In this dark farce of a novel, set in an old-fashioned Central European spa town, eight characters are swept up in an accelerating dance. Perhaps the most brilliantly plotted and entertaining of Milan Kundera's novels, Farewell Waltz poses the most serious questions with a blasphemous lightness that makes us see that the modern world has deprived us even of the right to tragedy.Written in Bohemia in 1969-70, this book was first published in 1976. This beautiful new translation, made...

In this thought-provoking, endlessly enlightening, and entertaining essay on the art of the novel, renowned author Milan Kundera suggests that "the curtain" represents a ready-made perception of the world that each of us has-a pre-interpreted world. The job of the novelist, he argues, is to rip through the curtain and reveal what it hides. Here an incomparable literary artist cleverly sketches out his personal view of the history and value of the novel in Western civilization. In doing so,...

The New York Times bestseller by the author of legendary cult classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being.'Like all great writers, Kundera leaves indelible marks on his readers' imaginations.' Salman RushdieFrom 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 ...

'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

Rich in its stories, characters, and imaginative range, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is the novel that brought Milan Kundera his first big international success in the late 1970s. Like all his work, it is valuable for far more than its historical implications. In seven wonderfully integrated parts, different aspects of human existence are magnified and reduced, reordered and emphasized, newly examined, analyzed, and experienced.

'[A] curious and fascinating book . . . The vivacity of Kundera's prose, the whirl of his ideas, and his sincere engagement with grand narratives and troubling questions remind you what a rare talent he is.' IndependentCasting light on the most serious of problems and at the same time saying not one serious sentence; being fascinated by the reality of the contemporary world and at the same time completely avoiding realism - that's The Festival of Insignificance. Readers who...

An invigorating duo of essays exploring exile, language and national identity from one of Europe's most celebrated literary stars and author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being.89 Words, published in 1985, is an expanded version of the dictionary of sorts that readers encountered in The Art of the Novel, and comprises a fascinating and rigorous interrogation of what exile, life in another language, and the betrayals of ...