Editing Milan Kundera (section)

==Works==
Although his early poetic works are staunchly pro-communist,<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/3806/ |title=Man, a wide garden: Milan Kundera as a young Stalinist – Enlighten |date=12 April 2013 |publisher=University of Glasgow |access-date=19 November 2013}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/3806/1/Milan_Kundera.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/3806/1/Milan_Kundera.pdf |archive-date=9 October 2022 |url-status=live |title=Man, a wide garden: Milan Kundera as a young Stalinist |last=Jan Culik |date=January 2007 |publisher=University of Glasgow |access-date=19 November 2013}}</ref> his novels escape ideological classification. Kundera repeatedly insisted that he was a novelist rather than a politically motivated writer. Political commentary all but disappeared from his novels after the publication of ''[[The Unbearable Lightness of Being]]'' except in relation to broader philosophical themes. Kundera's style of fiction, interlaced with philosophical digression, was greatly inspired by the novels of [[Robert Musil]] and the [[philosophy of Nietzsche]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/personal/reading/kundera-unbearable.html |title=Kundera Milan: The Unbearable Lightness of Being |publisher=Webster.edu |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131105080909/http://www2.webster.edu/~corbetre/personal/reading/kundera-unbearable.html |archive-date=5 November 2013 |access-date=2013-11-19}}</ref> In 1945 the journal ''Gong'' published his translation of some of the works from the Russian poet [[Vladimir Mayakovsky|Vladimir Majakovsky]].<ref name="gale" /> The next year the journal ''Mladé archy'' printed a poem of his, to which he was inspired by his cousin [[Ludvík Kundera]], also a writer.<ref name="gale" />

In the mid-1950s he was readmitted to the Communist party and he was able to publish ''Manː A Wide Garden'' in 1953, a long epic poem in 1955 called ''The Last May'' dedicated to [[Julius Fučík (journalist)|Julius Fucik]] and the collection of lyrical poetry ''Monologue'' in 1957.<ref name="Boyer-Weinmann-2023" /> Those, together with other fore and afterwords are deemed to be written in the fashion of uncontroversial propaganda which allowed him to benefit to a certain degree from the advantages that came with being an established writer in a Communist environment.<ref name="Boyer-Weinmann-2023" /> In 1962 he wrote the play ''The Owners of the Keys,'' which became an international success and was translated into several languages.<ref name="Boyer-Weinmann-2023" /> Kundera himself claimed inspiration from [[Renaissance]] authors such as [[Giovanni Boccaccio]], [[Rabelais]] and, perhaps most importantly, [[Miguel de Cervantes]], to whose legacy he considered himself most committed. Other influences include [[Laurence Sterne]], [[Henry Fielding]], [[Denis Diderot]], [[Robert Musil]], [[Witold Gombrowicz]], [[Hermann Broch]], [[Franz Kafka]], [[Martin Heidegger]] and [[Georges Bataille]].<ref name="kafka">{{Cite book |last=Škop |first=Martin |year=2011 |title=Milan Kundera and Franz Kafka – How not to Forget the Everydayness |url=https://www.muni.cz/en/research/publications/964314 |publisher=Masaryk University}}</ref> Originally he wrote in the Czech language, but from 1985 onwards, he made a conscious transition from Czech towards the French which has since become the reference language for his translations.<ref name="Boyer-Weinmann-2023" /> Between 1985 and 1987, he undertook the revision of the French translations of his earlier works himself. With ''Slowness'' his first work in French was published in 1995.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Jones |first=Tim |year=2009 |title=Milan Kundera's Slowness – Making It Slow |journal=Review of European Studies |volume=1 |issue=2 |page=64 |doi=10.5539/RES.V1N2P64 |s2cid=53477512 |doi-access=free }}</ref> His works were translated into more than eighty languages.<ref name="Boyer-Weinmann-2023" />

===''The Joke''===
{{Main|The Joke (novel){{!}}''The Joke'' (novel)}}
In his first novel, ''The Joke'' (1967), he satirized the [[totalitarianism]] of the Communist era.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Howe |first1=Irving |title=Red Rulers and Black Humor  |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/kundera-joke.html |website=The New York Times |access-date=13 July 2023}}</ref> Following the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, the book was banned.<ref name="Kimball-1986" /> His criticism of the Soviet invasion in 1968 led to his [[blacklist]]ing<ref name="gale" /> in Czechoslovakia and the [[ban (law)|banning]]<ref name="Hereford Times-2023">{{cite web |title=Czech writer and former dissident Milan Kundera dies in Paris aged 94 |url=https://www.herefordtimes.com/news/national/23649954.czech-writer-former-dissident-milan-kundera-dies-paris-aged-94/ |website=Hereford Times |date=12 July 2023 |access-date=13 July 2023}}</ref> of his books.

===''Life Is Elsewhere''===
{{Main|Life Is Elsewhere{{!}}''Life Is Elsewhere''}}
Kundera's second novel was first published in French as ''[[Life Is Elsewhere|La vie est ailleurs]]'' in 1973 and in Czech as {{Lang|cs|[[Život je jinde]]}} in 1979. ''Life Is Elsewhere'' is a satirical portrait of the fictional poet Jaromil, a young and very naïve idealist who becomes involved in political scandals.<ref name="Theroux-1974">{{cite news |last1=Theroux |first1=Paul |title=Life Is Elsewhere |work=The New York Times |date=28 July 1974 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1974/07/28/archives/life-is-elsewhere-laughable-loves.html |access-date=13 July 2023}}</ref> For the novel Kundera was awarded the [[Prix Médicis]] the same year.<ref name="Sanders-1991">{{Cite journal |last=Sanders |first=Ivan |year=1991 |title=Mr. Kundera, the European |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40258623 |journal=The Wilson Quarterly |volume=15 |issue=2 |page=104 |jstor=40258623 |issn=0363-3276}}</ref>

===''The Book of Laughter and Forgetting''===
{{Main|The Book of Laughter and Forgetting{{!}}''The Book of Laughter and Forgetting''}}
In 1975, Kundera moved to France where ''[[The Book of Laughter and Forgetting]]'' was published in 1979.<ref name="Boyer-Weinmann-2023" /> An unusual mixture of novel, short story collection, and authorial musings which came to characterize his works in exile, the book dealt with how Czechs opposed the [[Communist regime]] in various ways. Critics noted that the Czechoslovakia Kundera portrays "is, thanks to the latest political redefinitions, no longer precisely there," which is the "kind of disappearance and reappearance" Kundera ironically explores in the book.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/240976.The_Book_of_Laughter_and_Forgetting |title=The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera – Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists |series=Perennial Classics |date=1999 |publisher=Goodreads.com |isbn=978-0-06-093214-5 |access-date=2013-11-19}}</ref>

===''The Unbearable Lightness of Being''===
{{Main|The Unbearable Lightness of Being{{!}}''The Unbearable Lightness of Being''}}
Kundera's most famous work, ''[[The Unbearable Lightness of Being]]'', was published in 1984. The book chronicles the fragile nature of an individual's fate, theorizing that a single lifetime is insignificant in the scope of [[Nietzsche]]'s concept of [[eternal return#Friedrich Nietzsche|eternal return]]. In an infinite universe, everything is guaranteed to recur infinitely. In 1988, American director [[Philip Kaufman]] released a [[The Unbearable Lightness of Being (film)|film adaptation]], which Kundera disliked.<ref name="Duffield-2023" /> The book focuses on the life of a Czech dissident surgeon's journey from Prague to Zurich and his return to Prague, where he was not permitted to take up work as a surgeon.<ref name="Hereford Times-2023" /> He worked instead as a window washer and used his job to arrange sex with hundreds of women.<ref name="Hereford Times-2023" /> At the end he and his wife move to the country.<ref name="Hereford Times-2023" /> The book was not published in Czechoslovakia due to Kundera's fear it would be badly edited. He eventually delayed the publishing date for years and only in 2006 would an official translation be available in the Czech language.<ref name="Hereford Times-2023" /> The book had previously been available in Czech, however, as a Czech expatriate in Canada had translated the book in 1985.<ref name="Hereford Times-2023" />

===''Ignorance''===
{{Main|Ignorance (novel){{!}}''Ignorance'' (novel)}}
In 2000, ''[[Ignorance (novel)|Ignorance]]'' was published. The novel centres on the romance of two alienated Czech émigrés, two decades after the [[Prague Spring]] of 1968. It is thematically concerned with the suffering of emigration. In it, Kundera undermines the myths surrounding nostalgia and the émigré's longing for return. He concludes that in the "etymological light nostalgia seems something like the pain of ignorance, of not knowing." Kundera suggests a complex relationship between memory and nostalgia, writing that our memory can "create rifts both with our earlier selves and between people who ostensibly share a past." The main characters of Irena and Josef discover how emigration and forgetfulness have ultimately freed them from their pain. Kundera draws heavily from the myth of [[Odysseus]], specifically the "mythology of home, the delusions of roots."<ref name="Hron-2007">{{cite journal | last=Hron | first=Madelaine | title=The Czech Émigré Experience of Return after 1989: The great return: the pain of ignorance | journal=[[The Slavonic and East European Review]] | publisher=Modern Humanities Research Association | volume=85 | issue=1 | year=2007 | issn=0037-6795 | jstor=4214394 | pages=72–76 | doi=10.1353/see.2007.0104 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/4214394 | access-date=14 July 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Jaggi|first=Maya|author-link=Maya Jaggi|date=15 November 2002|title=Czech mate|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/nov/16/fiction.milankundera|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|access-date=13 July 2023}}</ref> Linda Asher translated the original French version of the novel to English in 2002.<ref>{{cite news|last=Howard|first=Maureen|author-link=Maureen Howard|date=6 October 2002|title=Shut Up, Memory|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/06/books/shut-up-memory.html|url-status=live|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|archive-url=https://archive.today/20200118194923/https://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/06/books/shut-up-memory.html|archive-date=18 January 2020|access-date=14 July 2023|url-access=limited}}</ref>

=== ''The Festival of Insignificance'' ===
{{Main|The Festival of Insignificance{{!}}''The Festival of Insignificance''}}
The 2014 novel focuses on the musings of four male friends living in Paris who discuss their relationships with women and the existential predicament confronting individuals in the world, among other things. The novel received generally negative reviews. [[Michiko Kakutani]] of the ''New York Times'' describes the book as being a "knowing, pre-emptive joke about its own superficiality".<ref name="Kakutani-2015">{{Cite news |last=Kakutani |first=Michiko |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/15/books/review-milan-kunderas-the-festival-of-insignificance-is-full-of-pranks-lies-and-vanity.html |title=Review: Milan Kundera's 'The Festival of Insignificance' Is Full of Pranks, Lies and Vanity |date=2015-06-14 |work=The New York Times |access-date=2015-12-29 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> A review in the ''Economist'' stated that the book was "sadly let down by a tone of breezy satire that can feel forced".<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21654001-czech-novelist-has-published-what-could-be-his-last-book-unbearable-lightness?zid=319&ah=17af09b0281b01505c226b1e574f5cc1 |title=Unbearable lightness |newspaper=The Economist|access-date=2015-12-29 |issn=0013-0613}}</ref>