The Unbearable Lightness of Being: 'A Dark and Brilliant Achievement'

The bestselling modern classic — Milan Kundera's iconic novel of love and politics in communist Czechoslovakia is “a dark and brilliant achievement” (Ian McEwan) by “an artist” (Salman Rushdie).

“A cult figure.” — The Guardian
“An artist, clearly one of the best to be found anywhere.” — Salman Rushdie
“A dark and brilliant achievement.” — Ian McEwan
“Shamelessly clever ... Exhilaratingly subversive and funny.” — The Independent
“A modern classic ... As relevant now as when it was first published.” — John Banville

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.

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.”

The Unbearable Lightness of Being encompasses passion and philosophy, infidelity and ideas, the Prague Spring and modern America, political acts and private desires, comedy and tragedy — in fact, all of human existence.

About the Author
Milan Kundera was a French-Czech novelist born in the Czech Republic who lived in France from 1975 until his death in Paris in 2023.

Michael Henry Heim was a professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Comparative Literature at UCLA.