Search results for ""Author Milan Kundera""

A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon; a man torn between his love for her and his womanising. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals; while her other lover stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities.

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The classic of literary criticism from one of the world's greatest novelists.In seven independent, but closely related chapters, Milan Kundera presents his personal conception of the European novel, which he describes as 'an art born of the laughter of God'.'Invigoratingly suggestive . . . Kundera's map of the development of the European novel is outlined with the reckless brevity of the man who knows exactly what and where the salient points are.' London Review of Books'Kundera is the saddest, funniest and most loveable of authors.' The Times

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The people of Central Europe cannot be separated from European history; they cannot exist outside it; but they represent the wrong side of this history; they are its victims and outsiders.In a moment of historic peril and uncertainty in mainland Europe, Milan Kundera makes the case for Central Europe as the nucleus of European values and as a lightning rod for its potential dangers.For the countries that make up this region where democracy is under continued threat from Russian oppression, language and culture play an active role in affirming national identity. And each of these countries - Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia - has been historically overlooked by the major powers of Western Europe. But Kundera cautions that this blindness puts Europe's cultural and political independence at risk, a warning that feels increasingly relevant to our current moment, and our future.

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Una mujer y un hombre se encuentran por casualidad durante su viaje de regreso al país natal del que emigraron hace veinte años. Podrán reemprender una extraña historia de amor, apenas iniciada entonces en su tierra ? El caso es que, tras tan larga ausencia, sus recuerdos no se parecen. Porque nuestra memoria, la pobre, qué puede hacer ? Sólo es capaz de retener del pasado una miserable pequeña parcela sin que nadie sepa por qué precisamente ésa y no otra.. Vivimos sumidos en un inmenso olvido, y no queremos saberlo. Sólo aquellos que, como Ulises, vuelven después de veinte años a su Ítaca natal pueden ver de cerca, atónitos y deslumbrados, a la diosa de la ignorancia.

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Kundera's essay has been written like a novel. In the course of nine separate sections, the same characters meet and cross paths with each other. Stravinsky and Kafka with their odd friends Ansermet and Brod; Hemingway with his biographer; Janácek with his little nation; and Rabelais with his heirs - the great novelists.In the light of their wisdom this book examines some of the great situations of our time. The moral trial of the twentieth century's art, from Celine to Mayakovsky; the passage of time which blurs the boundaries between the 'I' of the present day and the 'I' of the past; modesty as an essential concept in an age based on the individual and indiscretion which, as it becomes the habit and the norm, heralds the twilight of individualism; the testaments, the betrayed testaments - of Europe, of art, of the art of the novel and of artists.

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UN ENCUENTRO nos da a conocer a un KUNDERA, en ciertomodo, inédito. En efecto, aunque el autor reflexione, como confiesa al principio del libro, sobre sus viejostemasexistenciales y estéticos, lo cierto es que en esteapasionado -y apasionante- encuentro con algunasobrasmaestras de la literatura, la música y la pintura, el escritorcheco aborda cuestioneshastaahorapoco o nada transitadas en suslibrosanteriores. Así, explora lo que la novela -y sólo la novela, esa sonda existencial- puede explicar sobre el ser humano, e indaga asimismo en las repercusiones, no siemprenegativas, que el exilio tiene para el creador (con una emocionantecomparación entre las dos Primaveras del 68, la de París y la de Praga). Tambiéndesentraña el papel de la memoriaante las tragediasdel siglo XX y habla de la lucha desesperada del verdadero artista por asumir lo mejor de la tradición de suarte (con una irónica pregunta sobre lo que la posteridad conserva finalmente de los autores). Por último, sostiene que sól

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With the same dazzling mix of emotion and idea that characterizes his novels he illuminates the art and artists who remain important to him and whose work helps us better understand the world. An astute and brilliant reader of fiction, Kundera applies these same gifts to the reading of Francis Bacon's paintings, Leos Janácek's music, the films of Federico Fellini, as well as to the novels of Philip Roth, Dostoyevsky, and García Márquez, among others. He also takes up the challenge of restoring to their rightful place the work of major writers like Anatole France and Curzio Malaparte who have fallen into obscurity.Milan Kundera's signature themes of memory and forgetting, the experience of exile, and his spirited championing of modernist art mark these essays. Art, he argues, is what we have to cleave to in the face of evil, against the expression of the darker side of human nature. Elegant, startlingly original and provocative, Encounter follows Kundera's essay collections, The Art of the Novel, Testaments Betrayed and The Curtain.

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Jacques and His Master is a deliciously witty and entertaining 'variation' on Diderot's novel Jacques le fataliste, written for Milan Kundera's 'private pleasure' in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia. When the 'heavy Russian irrationality' fell on Czechoslovakia he felt drawn to the spirit of the eighteenth century - 'And it seemed to me that nowhere was it to be found more densely concentrated than in that banquet of intelligence, humour and fantasy, Jacques le Fataliste'.This translation by Simon Callow has delighted Kundera's admirers throughout the English-speaking world.

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Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles. A chance encounter leads a man to spend the afternoon with an older woman, now a widow, who escaped him fifteen years earlier. Neither of them doubts that the day will end in disgust, but for one intimate moment each finds a way to overcome mortality.Written in 1969, before Milan Kundera was known to English-speaking readers, this story renders male and female characters painful equals, and prompted Philip Roth to admire its 'detached Chekhovian tenderness'.Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work.

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A philosophical masterpiece by the author of modern classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being.In a narrative as intense as it is brief, a moment of confusion sets in motion a complex chain of events which forces the reader to cross and recross the divide between fantasy and reality.Sometimes - perhaps only for an instant - we fail to recognise a companion; for a moment their identity ceases to exist, and thus we come to doubt our own. The effect is at its most acute in a couple where our existence is given meaning by our perception of a lover, and theirs of us.With his astonishing skill at building on and out from the significant moment, Kundera has placed such a situation and the resulting wave of panic at the core of the novel. In a narrative as intense as it is brief, a moment of confusion sets in motion a complex chain of events which forces the reader to cross and recross the divide between fantasy and reality. Profound, sad and disquieting but above all a love story, Identity provides further proof of Kundera's astonishing gifts as a novelist.

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A heady, existential tale of seduction and romance by the author of modern classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being.'An artist, clearly one of the best to be found anywhere.' Salman RushdieSlowness was Kundera's first novel written in French. Disconcerted and enchanted, the reader follows him through a midsummer's night in which two tales of seduction, separated in time by more than two hundred years, interweave and oscillate between the sublime and ridiculous.Underlying this libertine fantasy is a profound meditation on contemporary life: about the secret bond between slowness and memory, about the connection between our era's desire to forget and the way we have given ourselves over to the demon of speed. And about "dancers" possessed by the passion to be seen, for whom life is merely a perpetual show emptied of every intimacy and every joy.As Kundera's readers would expect, Slowness is at the same time a formidable display of existential analysis. Slowness (and rapidity), discretion (and exhibitionism) are the principal concepts, and those which are to the reader like vital keys for understanding life in our contemporary world.

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Klima, a celebrated jazz trumpeter, receives a phone call announcing that a young nurse with whom he spent a brief night at a fertility spa is pregnant. She has decided he is the father.And so begins a comedy which, during five madcap days, unfolds with ever-increasing speed. Klima's beautiful, jealous wife, the nurse's equally jealous boyfriend, a fanatical gynaecologist, a rich American, at once Don Juan and saint, and an elderly political prisoner who, just before his emigration, is holding a farewell party at the spa are all drawn into this black comedy, as in A Midsummer Night's Dream.As usual, Milan Kundera poses serious questions with a blasphemous lightness which makes us understand that the modern world has taken away our right to tragedy.

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'A masterpiece' (Salman Rushdie) by the author of modern classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being.'[It] calls itself a novel, although it is part fairy tale, part literary criticism, part political tract, part musicology, and part autobiography. It can call itself whatever it wants to, because the whole is genius.' New York TimesWhat readers are saying:'Kundera embrace politics, sex, philosophy and history, with a seen-it-all cynicism that nevertheless manages to be fascinating and even uplifting ... It was addictive and fun, sexy and cool, easy to read, and made me feel brighter, switched on, and more alive.''You must read this novel. Can't tell you about it, you just have to do it yourself. Its bonkers-brilliant! Phantasmagoric originality like this comes very seldom in a reader's so-sweet life.''Kundera's unique writing style comes as a revelation ... This holds a special place in my reading history as the one book that I instantly began re-reading as soon as I finished it.''Absolutely enchanted me. It's such an unique novel. It speaks of so many things, from communism and regimes to love and art. For me personally, it is a perfect book.''I am not going to spoil the story here, but while the story is not supernatural in any way, it takes on a fantastical flavor, full of mysteries and strange emotions ... It is obvious that Kundera has thought a lot about life, about the meaning of life, and lets the reader in on his secrets.''Such a unique writer, Kundera! What a way he has to shine the brightest light on the deepest corners of human psyche.'

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40th anniversary edition of the bestselling modern classic: Milan Kundera's iconic novel of love and politics in communist Czechoslovakia.'Shamelessly clever ... Exhilaratingly subversive and funny.' Independent'A modern classic ... As relevant now as when it was first published. ' John BanvilleA young woman is in love with a successful surgeon: a man torn between his love for her and his womanising. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals, while her other lover stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities. In a world where lives are shaped by choices and events, and everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance and weight - and we feel 'the unbearable lightness of being'.Kundera's classic provoked a whole generation, encompassing passion and philosophy, body and soul, infidelity and ideas, the Prague Spring and modern America, political acts and private desires, comedy and tragedy - in fact, all of human existence.What readers are saying:'Some books change your mind, some change your heart, the very best change your whole world ... A mighty piece of work, that will shape your life forever.''One of the best books I've ever read ... A book about love and life, full of surprises. Beautiful.''This book is going to change your life ... It definitely leaves you with a hangover after you're done reading.''Kundera writes about love as if in a trance so the beauty of it is enchanting and dreamy ... Will stay with you.'

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