About this book
When 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. To commemorate the anniversary of its first English-language publication, HarperCollins is proud to offer a special hardcover edition. 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.
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.
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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.
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