Milan Kundera, the Czech novelist who combined sexual and real-life politics in his writings and rose to global fame with The Unbearable Lightness of Being, died Tuesday in Paris.
He was 94.His death, following a prolonged illness, was announced by French publisher Gallimard on Wednesday.Kundera’s literary career and personal life were closely tied to the Prague Spring, the brief flowering of political liberalization and cultural expression in Czechoslovakia that promised “socialism with a human face” in 1968 but was brutally crushed by Soviet-led troops.
His breakout novel, The Joke, was published to acclaim during that period but quickly banned after the crackdown.He went into exile in France in 1975, where he remained until his death.
Over the years, he regularly sparred with authorities of his homeland, was expelled multiple times from the Communist party for his “reformist views” and had his Czechoslovak citizenship revoked in 1979.
He was only re-granted…
Read full article