The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Milan Kundera was a prominent Czech author whose many novels, stories, and plays explore the impact of totalitarianism on societies, develop complex philosophical thought experiments, and probe the nature of existence and the complexities of human relationships. Born in Czechoslovakia, Kundera emigrated in 1975 and lived in exile in France for the duration of his life. He was awarded French citizenship, and ultimately began to write his novels in French rather than in Czech. Until the peaceful Velvet Revolution of 1989 that toppled communism and resulted in the breakup of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, many of Kundera’s works were banned in his birth country. His widely lauded career spanned decades, and he died in Paris in July 2023.

Born in 1929 in the Czech second city Brno to Ludvík Kundera, a musicologist, and Milada Kunderová, an educator, Kundera was interested in music from an early age. He joined the communist party in 1947 and moved to Prague, where he first enrolled in music studies at Charles University, but then switched to film studies. He was expelled from the party in 1950, but went on to work as a lecturer in world literature. Kundera came of age and began his career during an era of intense