The Czech writer didn’t only leave us The Unbearable Lightness of Being, he wrote a series of playful, philosophical books examining relationships, sex and mortality
May 2024
The books of my life
Leïla Slimani: ‘Salman Rushdie’s books made me feel I could become a writer’
The Lullaby author on identifying with Jo in Little Women, being terrified of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and why we’re still in debt to Steinbeck
December 2023
The Observer's obituaries of 2023
‘He reflected the laughable complexity of the world’: Milan Kundera remembered by Florence Noiville
The literary editor recalls her contributor and friend, a deep political thinker, talented musician and mischievous dinner companion
August 2023
War, identity, irony: how Russian aggression put central Europe back on the map
Jacques Rupnik
A 1980s essay by Czech writer Milan Kundera on the peoples trapped between east and west is enjoying a new lease of life, says research professor Jacques Rupnik
‘To be a writer means to discover a truth’: Milan Kundera – a life in quotes
Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being author dies aged 94
September 2020
Milan Kundera 'joyfully' accepts Czech Republic's Franz Kafka prize
Prestigious award follows the restoration of his citizenship last year after decades of exile in Paris
December 2019
Top 10s
Top 10 novels about adultery
Milan Kundera's Czech citizenship restored after 40 years
November 2018
Milan Kundera may have Czech citizenship restored, says prime minister
Czech prime minister proposes renewing exiled writer’s citizenship decades after the communist regime removed it
May 2018
Books that made me
Taiye Selasi: 'I'm ashamed not to have read The Color Purple'
The author recalls being inspired by Arundhati Roy, rereading Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being and why no book is overrated
March 2018
Top 10s
Top 10 parallel narratives
From Philip Roth to Zadie Smith, Lisa Halliday selects some of the best novels using formal adventures to bridge the ‘impassable gaps’ in our world
December 2017
Top 10s
Top 10 books about the unconscious
From BF Skinner’s behaviourism to Milan Kundera’s existential comedy, these are some boldly counterintuitive guides to the part of ourselves we know least
September 2015
Forget Morrissey’s ‘bulbous salutation’, here are my good sex awards
Flic Everett
The singer’s debut novel has been deservedly mocked for its lurid sex scenes. If only he’d studied Flaubert, Kundera or Chaucer before he started writing …
July 2015
Top 10s
Top 10 wartime love stories
All’s fair game in love and war, from Odysseus in disguise from Penelope to Nineteen Eighty-Four’s preternaturally doomed couple Winston and Julia
