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Milan Kundera _________________
Czech Republic 1929-
Kundera was born in Brno in the highly cultured middle class family of Ludvík Kundera (1891-1971), an important Czech musicologist and pianist, the head of the Brno Musical Academy between 1948 and 1961. From early years on, Kundera learned to play the piano with his father. Later, he also studied musicology. The author completed his secondary school studies in Brno in 1948. He then started studying literature and aesthetics at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University, but after two terms he transferred to the Film Academy. After graduation in 1952 he was appointed as lecturer in world literature at the Film Academy.
In his mature fiction Kundera shows human existence as infinitely open to countless possibilites, thus freeing Man from the limitedness of one, unrepeatable human life. In concentrating on the sexual experiences of his characters, Kundera analyses the symbolic social meaning of these erotic encounters, thus being able to deal with the most essential themes concerning Man. (University of Glasgow)
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Kundera is one of the most important contemporary Czech writers. The story of his writing is a story of many Czech intellectuals freeing themselves of the Marxist dogma and of gaining and communicating important insights, based on the traumatic experience of life under totalitarianism.