Milan Kundera is among the few novelists to emerge from East-Central Europe since the Second World War to have achieved international recognition and critical acclaim. Lucid and cerebral, writing a prose charged in equal measure with flippant eroticism, dark existential metaphysics, and ironic humour, the Czech-Parisian writer is published in translation in over twenty-two languages. His literary and essayistic output made a decisive contribution to literary and intellectual debate on both sides of the Berlin Wall in the final decades of communist totalitarianism.

A particularly reclusive author-figure, Kundera is famously reluctant to speak about his life. Having experienced in his native country the curse of “total public visibility” and the consequences of the State's intrusion into

5843 words

Citation: Sandru, Cristina, Charles Sabatos. "Milan Kundera". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 April 2006; last revised 13 July 2021. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2569, accessed 19 March 2024.]

2569 Milan Kundera 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.