Milan Kundera obituary

In December 1968, a plane carrying Gabriel García Márquez and Carlos Fuentes landed in Prague. Both authors express solidarity with the Czechoslovak writers and discuss the historical event of the year: how Alexander Dubcek's hopes for the Prague Spring were dashed by the endless collapse of the Soviet Patriarchate. I came here to

It was owned by Milan Kundera, a Czech writer and essayist who died at the age of 94. Recognizing the need to speak freely, Kundera takes the guests to the only private place in the city, the sauna. As the steam rose and our bodies began to heat up, visitors began asking, "Where can we sweat?" The Czechs led them to a back door facing the ditch of the frozen Vltava River. He pointed to the river and they went down, expecting him to follow. But when the flowers of Latin American literature appeared like ice-cold popsicles, Kundera was left laughing on the beach.

"The Second Bohemian K", as Fuentes Kundera dubbed it, developed a reputation as a poet, playwright, essayist and thinker in 1968. His first novel, The Joke (originally rejected for being against official ideology) was finally published last year and was a cult success, but socialism with a human face was a "threat" to power. The decisive moment came when it collided with the “dominant power”. Not only does this provide the backdrop for his magnum opus, the most famous The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1982), but it is also a central theme in his writings. It asks, ``How can I become a writer in an era when political agitation policies have managed to create 'feelings'?' will. "rule."

For Kundera, who once called himself "a fanatic trapped in a highly politicized world" and whose novels were full of sensual pleasures and humiliations, the poet's lyrical drunkenness and revolutionary spirit were a dangerous alliance. rice field. From the beginning, funny was a serious problem. In Jokes, the postman sends a playful greeting, "Long live Trotsky!" Censorship has lost its irony, and the results are deplorable. Similarly, the narratives that make up Ridiculous Love (1963-1968) shift from farce to horror in an instant. The book was completed three days before the Russian invasion.

Like many intellectuals, Kundera participated in the movement to create de-Stalinized socialism. At the 4th Writers' Union Congress in 1967, Kundera delivered a rallying address, stating that Czechoslovakia's existential instability (often overlooked and threatened by language) left Czechoslovakia unique in its approach to the twentieth century. He argued that it was possible. Accomplished "only in a state of complete freedom".

After the invasion, however, his belief in the possibility of change collapsed. He lost his "privilege to work", his books were removed from libraries and could not be published by 1970 and "normalization" (Dupcek's policy of reversing reforms)..

For Kundera, who once called himself "a fanatic trapped in a highly politicized world" and whose novels were full of sensual pleasures and humiliations, the poet's lyrical drunkenness and revolutionary spirit were a dangerous alliance. rice field. From the beginning, funny was a serious problem. In Jokes, the postman sends a playful greeting, "Long live Trotsky!" Censorship has lost its irony, and the results are deplorable. Similarly, the narratives that make up Ridiculous Love (1963-1968) shift from farce to horror in an instant. The book was completed three days before the Russian invasion.

Like many intellectuals, Kundera participated in the movement to create de-Stalinized socialism. At the 4th Writers' Union Congress in 1967, Kundera delivered a rallying address, stating that Czechoslovakia's existential instability (often overlooked and threatened by language) left Czechoslovakia unique in its approach to the twentieth century. He argued that it was possible. Accomplished "only in a state of complete freedom".

After the invasion, however, his belief in the possibility of change collapsed. He lost his "privilege to work", his books were removed from libraries and could not be published by 1970 and "normalization" (Dupcek's policy of reversing reforms)..