Milan Kundera Biography

Milan Kundera is a Czech-born French writer known for his erotic and political writings. One of his best known works is ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’, which explores the artistic and intellectual life of Czech society in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Born into a middle-class family in Czechoslovakia as the son of a prominent musicologist and pianist, young Milan followed in his father’s footsteps to study musicology and musical composition. A teenager at the time of the World War II, his ideology was greatly influenced by the experiences of the war and the German occupation. As a young man he joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia though he was soon expelled because of his “anti-party” activities. He completed his higher studies at Film Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and became a lecturer after graduation. He began his writing career as a poet and proceeded to write short stories and novels as well. Most of his works have erotic undertones and political elements which led him to be regarded as a political or dissident writer. He was forced to go into exile in France due to the controversial nature of his works and became a naturalized French citizen soon after. He is known to be a reclusive person who rarely speaks to the media.