The Unbearable Lightness of Being: The Modern Literary Classic (Harper Perennial Deluxe Editions) - Softcover

Kundera, Milan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061148520 ISBN 13: 9780061148521

Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2009

Synopsis

International Bestseller • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction

“Far more than a conventional novel. It is a meditation on life, on the erotic, on the nature of men and women and love . . . full of telling details, truths large and small, to which just about every reader will respond.” ― People

In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, acclaimed author Milan Kundera tells the story of two couples: a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing, and one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover. Set against the backdrop of the Prague Spring, this unforgettable work of philosophical fiction explores a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and by fortuitous events, a world in which everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence, we feel "the unbearable lightness of being" not only as the consequence of our pristine actions but also in the public sphere, and the two inevitably intertwine.

This magnificent novel is a story of passion and politics, infidelity and ideas, and encompasses the extremes of comedy and tragedy, illuminating all aspects of human existence.

About this title

About the Author

The Franco-Czech novelist Milan Kundera (1929–2023) was born in Brno and lived in France, his second homeland, since 1975 until his death. He is the author of the novels The Joke, Life Is Elsewhere, Farewell Waltz, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Immortality, and the short story collection Laughable Loves—all originally in Czech. His more recent novels, Slowness, Identity, Ignorance, and The Festival of Insignificance, as well as his nonfiction works, The Art of the Novel, Testaments Betrayed, The Curtain, and Encounter, were originally written in French.

From the Back Cover

A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon, a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals—while her other lover, earnest, faithful, and good, stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities. In a world where lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and fortuitous events, and everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence we feel "the unbearable lightness of being."

A major achievement from one of the world's truly great writers, Milan Kundera's magnificent novel of passion and politics, infidelity and ideas, encompasses the extremes of comedy and tragedy, illuminating all aspects of human existence.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0061148520
• ISBN 13: 9780061148521
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320