Celebrated ‘Unbearable Lightness of Being’ writer Milan Kundera dead at 94

Milan Kundera, the celebrated author of “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” who had his Czech citizenship revoked in 1979 after going into exile in France, died Tuesday in Paris at the age of 95.

“[The] Czech-French author, who is among the world’s most translated writers today, died on July 11, 2023 in his Paris apartment,” the Moravian Library in Brno, Kundera’s city of birth, said in a statement Wednesday.

Kundera’s death was also announced by his French publisher, Gallimar. In a short statement, his publishing house confirmed he had died in Paris, but didn’t provide any details.

Born on April 1, 1929 in the family of a prominent musicologist and pianist, Ludvik Kundera, the notoriously reclusive literary giant joined the Communist Party as it took power shortly after World War II.

He was expelled from the party in 1950, an experience that serve as inspiration for his first novel, “The Joke,” published in 1967.

According to the Brno library, his first book began attracting the attention of international publishers and readers. But it wasn’t until 1984, with the publication of “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” that Kundera became a literary global superstar.

The novel, which opens with Soviet tanks rolling through the Czech capital of Prague, encompasses “the extremes of comedy and tragedy, and embraces, it seems, all aspects of human existence,” according to the publisher of the book in the U.S., HarperCollins.

Following a Soviet invasion in In August 1968, Kundera’s books were banned in his native country. He was also barred from publishing.

He went into exile in France in 1975 and had his Czechoslovak citizenship revoked in 1979. Two years later, French President François Mitterrand granted him French citizenship.

“Milan Kundera was a writer who was able to reach generations of readers across all continents with his work and achieved world fame,” Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala tweeted early on Wednesday. “He was closely associated with Brno, even though he had to leave his country for political reasons,” Fiala said of Kundera, whose Czech citizenship was reinstated in 2019.

“He left behind not only a remarkable work of fiction, but also an important work of essays,” the prime minister added.

With News Wire Services