Who is Milan Kundera?
Milan Kundera is one of the most important contemporary Czech writers. He is one of the few Czech writers who have achieved wide international recognition. In his native Czechoslovakia, Kundera was regarded is an important author and intellectual from his early twenties. Each of his creative works and each of his contributions to the public political and cultural discourse always provoked a lively debate in the context of its time. In the first part of his creative career, Kundera was a communist, although from the inception, his fellow-believers considered him to be an unorthodox thinker. The story of his writing is a story of many Czech intellectuals of his generation: it is the story of freeing themselves of the Marxist dogma and of gaining and communicating important insights, based on the traumatic experience of life under totalitarianism in Central Europe. Milan Kundera was born in Brno in the highly cultured middle class family of Ludvík Kundera (1891-1971), a pupil of the compo
Milan Kundera was born on 1 April 1929 in Brno, Bohemia, which is now called Czechoslovakia. During his high school years, he first showed literary leanings by writing his first poems. In the aftermath of World War II, he worked as a jazz musician and then enrolled in college. At the Prague Academy of Performing Arts, he studied film, literature and music. He then moved on to become a professor of film at the same academy. It was around this time that Milan Kundera joined the editorial staff of literature magazines such as, Listy and Literarni Novini. Like many other Czech intellectuals of the time, he also joined the Communist Party in 1948. Two years later, he was expelled from the party for “individualistic tendencies”. He later rejoined the party for fourteen years between 1956 and 1970. Throughout the 50s, Kundera worked as a translator and essayist. He was also working at the time as an author of stage plays. By this time, Milan Kundera had published several volumes of poems, but
Kundera, Milan: Born April 1, 1929 in Brno, Moravia to Ludvik Kundera, a concert pianist, the younger Kundera was a jazz musician in his youth. He was a communist party member twice, from 1948-1950 and 1956-70. He was expelled from the party both times for heterodox opinions. These political forces affected his employment at the Film Faculty at the Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in Prague, where he taught until 1969, when he was fired and his works proscribed from legal publication in Czechoslovakia. In response to these restrictions, Kundera emigrated to France in 1975, where he taught at the University of Rennes from 1975-1978. He now lives in Paris with his wife, Vera Hrabankova.
Milan Kundera was born on 1 April 1929 in Brno, Bohemia, which is now called Czechoslovakia. During his high school years, he first showed literary leanings by writing his first poems. In the aftermath of World War II, he worked as a jazz musician and then enrolled in college. At the Prague Academy of Performing Arts, he studied film, literature and music. He then moved on to become a professor of film at the same academy.
