Celebrated novelist Milan Kundera, best known for his masterpiece "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," has died at the age of 94. The Moravian Library (MZK), which preserves Kundera's personal collection, confirmed that he passed away in his Paris residence on Tuesday after battling a prolonged illness.
Kundera gained acclaim for his unique portrayal of characters and themes that traversed the realm of mundane existence and the profound world of ideas. While he rarely granted interviews, believing that writers should express themselves through their literary works, his relationship with his home country remained complex after his departure.
In 1967, Kundera published his debut novel, "The Joke," which harshly depicted the Czechoslovak Communist regime and the political party of which he was still a member. Eventually disillusioned with the possibility of reform within the party, he relocated to France in 1975, leading to his Czechoslovak citizenship being revoked four years later.
In a 1976 interview with French daily Le Monde, Kundera emphasized that labeling his works as purely political would oversimplify and obscure their true significance, even though his books often carried political undertones. One of his notable works, "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" (1979), portrayed the manipulation of history and the creation of an alternative past by totalitarian regimes through a series of interconnected stories.
"The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (1984), Kundera's most renowned novel, revolved around the events of the Prague Spring and its aftermath. The book was later adapted into a film in 1988, directed by Philip Kaufman and featuring Daniel Day-Lewis, which garnered two Academy Award nominations.
In 2019, Kundera was granted Czech Republic citizenship. Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala remarked, "Milan Kundera was a writer who touched the lives of entire generations of readers worldwide, achieving global recognition. He leaves behind a remarkable literary legacy, encompassing both fiction and significant essays."
Born in the Czech city of Brno, Kundera chose to emigrate to France in 1975 following his ostracization for criticizing the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring reform movement in 1968.
Reporting by Jan Lopatka and Robert Muller in Prague and Elizabeth Pineau in Paris; Writing by Michael Kahn and Jason Hovet; Editing by Toby Chopra and Editing by Kevin Liffey.
