Milan+Kundera

Milan Kundera was born April 1, 1929 in Brno, Czechoslovakia (Now in Czech Republic). Ludvik Kundera, his father, was a musicologist and a concert pianist. As many people did then, Kundera studied under his father but it was never his passion. Eventually he drifted away from music and fell in love with writing. Kundera turned out to be a essayist, short story writer, poet, playwright and a novelist. During his early career he moved in and out of the communist party, (joined in 1948 and was expelled in 1950, readmitted in 1956 and a remaining member until 1970.) He also got married to Vera Hrabankova. In 1975 Kundera was allowed to emigrate (with his wife) from Czechoslovakia to teach at the University of Rennes (1975–78) in France.

Throughout Kundera’s career he wrote many different things, but before that he was a teacher. He taught literature at the Academy of Music and Drama Arts In Prague in 1952. In the 1950’s he published several collections of poetry. Some things he published were Poslední máj(1955; “The Last May”) and Monology (1957; “Monologues”). He had several volumes of short stories that were published and he wrote plays. His play Majitelé klíčů (1962; “The Owners of the Keys”) was extremely successful. The first novel he ever wrote was Žert (1967; The Joke). This novel was quite popular as well. Throughout his very exciting career he wrote many novels. Some of his most popular works were The Book of Laughter and Forgetting(1979), The Joke(1967) and the Unbearable Lightness of Being(1984).

Kundera left Czechoslovakia and moved to France. His country stripped him of his citizenship, but after that he became a citizen of France. He continued to live his life and write. Living in France made him see himself as a French writer and insisted his work should be studied as French literature. With Czechoslovakia stripping him of his citizenship, they also banned his books from their country.