Milan Kundera

"I can't imagine reading this book without being challenged and instructed, amused, amazed and aroused, and ultimately delighted." --John Simon, New York Times Book ReviewMilan Kundera's brilliant collection of essays is a passionate defense of art in an era that, he argues, no longer values art or beauty. With the same dazzling mix of emotion and ideas that characterizes his bestselling novels, the internationally acclaimed author revisits the artists whose works help us better understand what it means to be human. Elegant, startlingly original, and provocative, Encounter combines many of the author's signature themes with personal reflections and stories.

A passionate and provocative defence of art from the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being.Are we living in an era that no longer values art or beauty? This is Kundera's passionate defence of the creators who remain viscerally important to him, and whose work - especially the blazing newness of modernism - helps us better understand our world. From Francis Bacon's paintings to the films of Federico Fellini, novels by Philip Roth or Fyodor Dostoyevsky - as well as writers who are unjustly obscure, such as Anatole France and Curzio Malaparte - Kundera spiritedly champions these artists for a new generation. Startlingly original and provocative - and always elegant, witty and ironic - Kundera's argument that art is all we have to cleave to in the face of human evil grows more powerful by the day.'I can't imagine reading this book without being challenged and instructed, amused, amazed and aroused, and ultimately delighted.' New York Times Book Review'A pan-European intellectual force. The elegance of his arguments and lucidity of his criticism disguised as storytelling are marks of genius seriously focused but lightly worn.' Times'Immensely readable, the volume combines the sterling virtue of good writing with emotional and intellectual engagement. In short, a triumph.' Sunday Telegraph

International Bestseller - Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction"Far more than a conventional novel. It is a meditation on life, on the erotic, on the nature of men and women and love . . . full of telling details, truths large and small, to which just about every reader will respond." -- PeopleIn The Unbearable Lightness of Being, acclaimed author Milan Kundera tells the story of two couples, a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing, and one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover. In a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and by fortuitous events, a world in which everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence, we feel "the unbearable lightness of being" not only as the consequence of our pristine actions but also in the public sphere, and the two inevitably intertwine.This magnificent novel, now available in a beautifully designed Harper Perennial Deluxe Edition with French flaps and deckle edged paper, is a story of passion and politics, infidelity and ideas, and encompasses the extremes of comedy and tragedy, illuminating all aspects of human existence.

Traces the author's personal view of the history and significance of the novel in western civilization, arguing that a novel's development crosses international and language boundaries while serving to reveal previously unknown aspects of a reader's existence. By the author of The Art of the Novel. Reprint.

In this entertaining and stimulating essay, one of world literature's most distinctive thinkers sets out his personal view of the history and value of the novel in Western civilisation. Too often, Kundera suggests, a novel is thought about only within the confines of the language and nation of its origin, when in fact what makes a novel matter is its ability to reveal some previously unknown aspect of our existence. Kundera describes how the best novels, from Don Quixote to Ulysses and Madame Bovary to The Trial, do just that.

Milan Kundera prinadlezhit k chislu samykh populjarnykh pisatelej sovremennosti. Ego knigi bukvalno zavorazhivajut chitatelja izyskannostju stilja, umelym postroeniem sjuzheta, nakalom chuvstv u geroev. Kazhdoe novoe proizvedenie pisatelja popolnjaet rjad bestsellerov intellektualnoj prozy. "Nevynosimaja legkost bytija" - samyj znamenityj roman Milana Kundery, kotorym zachityvajutsja vse novye i novye pokolenija chitatelej, otkryvajuschie dlja sebja vershiny literatury XX veka. Kniga Kundery o ljubvi i neprostykh chelovecheskikh otnoshenijakh, o tragicheskom periode istorii i vmeste s tem eto gluboko filosofskaja vesch. Avtor pishet o neprimirimoj dvojstvennosti tela i dushi, o labirinte vozmozhnostej, po kotoromu bluzhdajut geroi, prozhivaja svoju edinstvennuju zhizn.

A classic of literary criticism from one of the world's greatest novelists and author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being.'A great novelist who is also a great critic.' GuardianCervantes, Joyce, Flaubert, Broch, Tolstoy, Kafka. What distinguishes the world and work of a truly great novelist? In these stunning philosophical reflections on the history, practice and morality of the novel, Kundera mines his personal experience as an author to argue that the European novel is 'an art born of the laughter of God'. Encompassing the role of historical events, the creation of character and the meaning of action in fiction, the result is a modern classic of literary criticism from one of the world's finest novelists - philosophical, playful and profound.

Irena and Josef meet by chance while returning to their homeland, which they had abandoned twenty years earlier. Will they manage to pick up the thread of their strange love story, interrupted almost as soon as it began and then lost in the tides of history? The truth is that after such a long absence "their memories no longer match."

An invigorating novelistic essay, rich in literary wisdom, from the international superstar author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being.'A masterpiece.' Independent'Nothing so much as a gauntlet, thrown down by Kundera for both novelists and their readers to pick up - if we dare. ' ObserverStravinsky and Kafka meet with their friends Ansermet and Brod; Hemingway with his biographer; Janácek with his little nation; and Rabelais with his heirs. In Kundera's unique essay written in the form of a novel, our greatest novelists become characters who repeatedly cross paths, shedding light on the great aesthetic questions of our time along the way. Through their wise encounters, we explore the moral trials of twentieth century culture; the boundaries between past and present; the twilight of individualism; and the betrayed testaments of European art. Characteristically rich in revelatory ideas about the time in which we live, eloquently exposing how we have become who we are, this is a landmark work from a legendary writer and critic.

A special 20th anniversary hardcover edition of this classic work of world literatureWhen The Unbearable Lightness of Being was first published in English, it was hailed as "a work of the boldest mastery, originality, and richness" by critic Elizabeth Hardwick and named one of the best books of 1984 by the New York Times Book Review. It went on to win the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction and quickly became an international bestseller. Twenty years later, the novel has established itself as a modern classic. A young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing; one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover--these are the two couples whose story is told in this masterful novel.Controlled by day, Tereza's jealousy awakens by night, transformed into ineffably sad death-dreams, while Tomas, a successful surgeon, alternates loving devotion to the dependent Tereza with the ardent pursuit of other women. Sabina, an independent, free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals -- of parents, husband, country, love itself -- whereas her lover, the intellectual Franz, loses all because of his earnest goodness and fidelity.In a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and by fortuitous events, a world in which everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence we feel, says the novelist, "the unbearable lightness of being" -- not only as the consequence of our private acts but also in the public sphere, and the two inevitably intertwine.This magnificent novel encompasses the extremes of comedy and tragedy, and embraces, it seems, all aspects of human existence. It juxtaposes geographically distant places (Prague, Geneva, Paris, Thailand, the United States, a forlorn Bohemian village); brilliant and playful reflections (on "eternal return," on kitsch, on man and animals--Tomas and Tereza have a beloved doe named Karenin); and a variety of styles (from the farcical to the elegiac) to take its place as perhaps the major achievement of one of the world's truly great writers.

The bestselling masterpiece tale of love and exile in Prague by the author of modern classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being.'An artist, clearly one of the best to be found anywhere.' Salman Rushdie'Kundera designs fictions of the highest order.' Ian McEwan'A subtle, penetrating and deeply felt exploration of the sadness, loneliness and irreparable loss of exile: one of [Kundera's] best novels.' Sunday TimesIrena has been exiled to Paris since leaving Czechoslovakia after the crushing of the Prague Spring in 1968. Twenty years later, after the collapse of Communism, she returns to her homeland - and reunites, by chance, with Josef, a fellow émigré and her one-time lover. Will they pick up the thread of their strange love story, interrupted in their native land almost as soon as it began - now lost in the tides of history, far from home? Or do their memories no longer align? A profound, polyphonic meditation on absence and alienation, nostalgia and truth, Ignorance is a masterpiece exposing the reality behind the romance of the homeward voyage.

A man and women enjoy a strange synchronicity when they meet upone returning to their homeland after two decades of exile and try to resume a relationship long in stasis. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 60,000 first printing.