Farewell Waltz

Name: Farewell Waltz
Author: Milan Kundera
ISBN: 9780063290730

by Milan Kundera

288 pages2023HarperCollinsISBN 9780063290730

Fiction

About this book

"After Farewell Waltz there cannot be any doubt. Kundera is a master of contemporary literature. This novel is both an an example of virtuosity and a descent into the human soul." —L'Unite Set in an old-fashioned Central European spa town, Farewell Waltz poses the most serious questions with a blasphemous lightness that makes us see that the modern world has deprived us even of the right to tragedy. In this dark farce of a novel, eight characters are swept up in an accelerating dance: a pretty nurse and her repairman boyfriend; an oddball gynecologist; a rich American (at once saint and Don Juan); a popular trumpeter and his beautiful, obsessively jealous wife; and an disillusioned former political prisoner about to leave his country and his young woman ward. It is perhaps the most brilliantly plotted and sheer entertaining of Milan Kundera's novels. Written in Bohemia in 1969-70, the book was first published (in 1976) in France under the title La valse aux adieux (Farewell Waltz), and later in thirty-four other countries. This beautiful translation, made from the French text prepared by the novelist himself, fully reflects Kundera's own tone and intentions, and offers an opportunity for both the discovery and the rediscovery of one of the very best of a great writer's works.

Publication Details

Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023
Pages: 288
ISBN: 9780063290730
Language: en

About Milan Kundera

Milan Kundera (1. dubna 1929 Brno – 11. července 2023 Paříž) byl česko-francouzský spisovatel. Od roku 1975 žil ve Francii, v roce 1979 byl zbaven československého státního občanství, roku 1981 získal občanství francouzské a v roce 2019 mu bylo vráceno občanství české. Texty psal nejdříve česky, později francouzsky. Do literatury vstoupil jako básník a dramatik, nakonec se ale stal celosvětově známým především jako prozaik a esejista. Jeho texty, zejména *Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí, Nesmrtelnost* a *Žert,* se zařadily mezi nejčastěji překládaná česká díla ve světě. Svá pozdější díla ve francouzštině k překladům do češtiny dlouho nesvěřoval, první přeloženou prózou do rodného jazyka se stala až Slavnost bezvýznamnosti v roce 2020. ---------- Milan Kundera (April 1, 1929, Brno – July 11, 2023, Paris) was a Czech-French writer. He lived in France since 1975, was stripped of his Czechoslovak citizenship in 1979, acquired French citizenship in 1981, and had his Czech citizenship restored in 2019. He first wrote his texts in Czech, later in French. He entered literature as a poet and playwright, but eventually became known worldwide primarily as a prose writer and essayist. His texts, especially *The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Immortality* and *The Joke*,* are among the most frequently translated Czech works in the world. He did not entrust his later works in French to Czech translations for a long time, and the first prose work translated into his native language was The Celebration of Insignificance in 2020.