Milan Kundera

Franco-Czechoslovak poet and novelist (1929—2023)

AI overview

Milan Kundera was a poet and novelist born in Czechoslovakia in 1929 who later lived in France, and he became one of the most influential writers of the late 20th century. His novels, which explored themes of human existence, love, and the absurdity of life, gained international recognition and made him an important figure in modern literature.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Born: 1929-04-01
Died: 2023-07-11
Works: 195

Top works

al-Ḥayāh hīya fī makān ākhar
Burut
ha-Hanaʾah sheba-iṭiyut
Člověk zahrada širá
Zahradou těch, které mám rád

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Film & TV

Brno, Czechoslovakia

Milan Kundera (1 April 1929 – 11 July 2023) was a writer of Czech origin who lived in exile in France since 1975, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1981. He is best known as the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, and The Joke. Kundera has written in both Czech and French. He revises the French translations of all his books; these therefore are…

Known for

Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Weight of History — Self (archive footage)2023
Milan Kundera: From the Joke to Insignificance — Self - Writer (voice) (archive footage)2021
Apostrophes — Self1975

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Wikidata facts

Instance of: human
Given name: Milan
Gender: male
Citizenship: statelessness
Place of birth: Brno
Place of death: Paris
Father: Ludvík Kundera
Occupation: short story writer
Educated at: Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague
Employer: School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences
Political party: Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
Languages spoken: Czech
Native language: Czech
Religion: atheism
Notable work: The Farewell Waltz
Field of work: translation
Instrument: piano
Image: Milan Kundera redux.jpg
Residence: Rennes

Show 14 more facts

Commons category: Milan Kundera
date of birth: 1929-04-01
topic's main category: Category:Milan Kundera
name in native language: Milan Kundera
IPA transcription: ˈmɪlan ˈkundɛra
start of work period: 1953-00-00
relative: Ludvík Kundera
writing language: French
date of death: 2023-07-11
end of work period: 2023-00-00
date of burial or cremation: 2023-07-19
P8168: Natalia Rusakova
P12674: Georges Weill
place of burial: Brno

Sources (15)

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~23 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Milan Kundera ( UK: /ˈkʊndərə, ˈkʌn-/ KU(U)N-dər-ə; Czech: [ˈmɪlan ˈkundɛra] ; 1 April 1929 – 11 July 2023) was a Czech and French novelist. Kundera went into exile in France in 1975, acquiring citizenship in 1981. His Czechoslovak citizenship was revoked in 1979, but he was granted Czech citizenship in 2019.

Kundera's best-known work is The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Before the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the country's ruling Communist Party of Czechoslovakia banned his books. He led a low-profile life and rarely spoke to the media. He was thought to be a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature and was also a nominee for other awards.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Milan Kundera” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.