Milan Kundera. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. A Novel

"The Unbearable Lightness of Being" is the most famous novel by Czech writer Milan Kundera. Written in 1982, after the author's departure for France, it was first published in 1984. Since then, for several decades, new generations of readers have found a resonance with the author's thoughts.

The novel's action unfolds against the backdrop of the Prague Spring of 1968. The characters suffer and love, struggle with the eternal choice between the spiritual and the earthly, and simply live, rejoicing and grieving, dreaming of better things and making mistakes. But the novel is not so much a narrative or action-packed novel as it is deeply philosophical, as its title and the reference to Nietzsche on the very first page immediately convey.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being—what is it? How should we understand it? How can lightness be unbearable? Kundera doesn't really offer any concrete answers; he merely invites readers into a world of questions, repeating them tirelessly throughout the narrative. Which is preferable: heaviness or lightness?

And it is unclear whether the writer knows the answers, but wants his followers to figure everything out for themselves, or whether he does not know and is in the same exciting bewilderment as all of us, before this mysterious, but, despite everything, so languidly beautiful Life.

In 1988, a film of the same name was made based on the book The Unbearable Lightness of Being.