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Milan Kundera, Literary Star Who Skewered Communist Rule, Dies at 94 Milan Kundera, Literary Star Who Skewered Communist Rule, Dies at 94
(1 day later)
Milan Kundera, the Communist Party outcast who became a global literary star with mordant, sexually charged novels that captured the suffocating absurdity of life in the workers’ paradise of his native Czechoslovakia, died on Tuesday in Paris. He was 94.Milan Kundera, the Communist Party outcast who became a global literary star with mordant, sexually charged novels that captured the suffocating absurdity of life in the workers’ paradise of his native Czechoslovakia, died on Tuesday in Paris. He was 94.
A spokeswoman for Gallimard, Mr. Kundera’s publisher in France, confirmed the death, saying it came “after a prolonged illness.”A spokeswoman for Gallimard, Mr. Kundera’s publisher in France, confirmed the death, saying it came “after a prolonged illness.”
Mr. Kundera’s run of popular books began with “The Joke,” which was published to acclaim in 1967, around the time of the Prague Spring, then banned with a vengeance after Soviet-led troops crushed that experiment in “socialism with a human face” a few months later. He completed his final novel, “The Festival of Insignificance” (2015), when he was in his mid-80s and living comfortably in Paris.Mr. Kundera’s run of popular books began with “The Joke,” which was published to acclaim in 1967, around the time of the Prague Spring, then banned with a vengeance after Soviet-led troops crushed that experiment in “socialism with a human face” a few months later. He completed his final novel, “The Festival of Insignificance” (2015), when he was in his mid-80s and living comfortably in Paris.
“Festival” was his first new fiction since 2000, but its reception, tepid at best, was a far cry from the reaction to his most enduringly popular novel, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.”“Festival” was his first new fiction since 2000, but its reception, tepid at best, was a far cry from the reaction to his most enduringly popular novel, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.”
An instant success when it was published in 1984, “Unbearable Lightness” was reprinted over the years in at least two dozen languages. The novel drew even wider attention when it was adapted into a 1988 film starring Daniel Day-Lewis as one of its central characters, Tomas, a Czech surgeon who criticizes the Communist leadership and consequently ends up washing windows for a living.
But washing windows is a pretty good deal for Tomas: A relentless philanderer, he’s always open to meeting new women, including bored housewives. But the sex as well as Tomas himself and the three other main characters — his wife, a seductive painter and the painter’s lover — are there for a larger purpose. In putting the novel on its list of best books of 1984, The New York Times Book Review observed that “this writer’s real business is to find images for the disastrous history of his country in his lifetime.”