Bøger af Milan Kundera

In this novel - a story of irreconcilable loves and infidelities - Milan Kundera addresses himself to the nature of twentieth-century 'Being' In a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and by fortuitous events, a world in which everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight.

This breathtaking, reverberating survey of human nature finds Kundera still attempting to work out the meaning of life without losing his acute sense of humour. It is one of those great unclassifiable masterpieces that appear once every twenty years or so. 'It will make you cleverer, maybe even a better lover.

The various parts follow each other like the various stages of a voyage leading into the interior of a theme, the interior of a thought, the interior of a single, unique situation the understanding of which recedes from my sight into the distance.

Historien om de to emigranter, Irene og Josef. De mødes tilfældigt i Paris på hjem til Prag - Irene genkender hurtigt Josef som sit livs tabte kærlighed, hvorimod han blot ser en midaldrende kvinde, som han umiddelbart fatter sympati for og ser en ligestillet i, fremmedgjort som han er over for sit fædreland. De oplever en enkelt elskovseftermiddag i Prag, men Irene opdager hurtigt, at Josef ikke aner, hvem hun er - og det, der skulle have været den store hjemkomst for dem begge, bliver alt andet end det. Oversat fra fransk efter L'ignorance af Lilian Munk Rösing.

Milan Kundera sidder i starten af romanen ved kanten af et svømmebassin sammen med sin ven, Professor Avenarius. Han ser en ældre kvinde sende forelskede blikke til sin unge svømmelærer. På vej ud af svømmehallen glemmer kvinden i et øjeblik sig selv og løfter armen til hilsen. Hun er i dette øjeblik ung. - Denne bevægelse af tidløs ynde bliver Kunderas inspiration til kvinden Agnes, UDØDELIGHEDENs hovedperson. "UDØDELIGHEDEN er en roman om tanke kontra følelse, om kærlighed og sex, om død og kunst, om det larmende liv i de moderne metropoler. Og så er den til og med skæg, fuld af humor og grinagtige situationer. En pragtfuld, uforlignelig roman om vor tid." - Henrik Milton Sørensen, Politiken.

Genudgivelse i pocketbog-version. Et midaldrende parisisk par, Chantal og Jean-Marc, søger at indkredse deres fælles identitet. De lever i angst for at miste sig selv eller hinanden, og handler på hver sin måde for at imødegå risikoen.

The effect is at its most acute in a couple where our existence is given meaning by our perception of a lover, and theirs of us. With his astonishing skill at building on and out from the significant moment, Kundera has placed such a situation and the resulting wave of panic at the core of the novel.

Dette "essay i syv dele" er Milan Kunderas statusopgørelse over sine betragtninger vedrørende romankunsten. Bogen indeholder tekster om den europæiske roman og specielt om Cervantes, Hermann Broch og Kafka. Bogen afsluttes med forfatterens takketale, da han i 1985 modtog Jerusalem-Prisen: Romanen og Europa.

A man and a woman meet by chance while returning to their homeland, which they had abandoned 20 years earlier when they chose to become exiles. Will they manage to pick up the thread of their strange love story, interrupted as soon as it began and then lost in the tides of history?

Disconcerted and enchanted, the reader follows him through a midsummer's night in which two tales of seduction, separated in time by more than two hundred years, interweave and oscillate between the sublime and ridiculous. As Kundera's readers would expect, Slowness is at the same time a formidable display of existential analysis.

A chance encounter leads a man to spend the afternoon with an older woman who escaped him 15 years earlier. trapped between her dead husband and a son who rejects everything that is youthful in her, she has allowed herself to age almost beyond recognition. The man's assessment of her appearance is brutal.

The classic of literary criticism from one of the world's greatest novelists. In seven independent, but closely related chapters, Milan Kundera presents his personal conception of the European novel, which he describes as 'an art born of the laughter of God'. 'Invigoratingly suggestive .

Den nu 80-årige Milan Kundera udforsker i essaysamlingen ’Et møde’ sit forhold til den moderne kunst og dødelighed – også sin egen. Med naturlig lethed får den fransk-tjekkiske forfatter koblet litterære klassikere med sine egne små hverdagsobservationer, og i lighed med ’Romankunsten’ fra 1986 har meget af det, Kundera har at sige at gøre med romanen som genre og succeserne og manglen på samme hos visse romanforfattere. Udgangspunktet for Kunderas refleksioner omhandler dog denne gang ikke kun romanforfatteres værker, men også malerier, musik og film. En tankevækkende bog om kunsten og livet, og hvordan de to er tæt forbundne.

Genudgivelse i pocket-format.En grotesk, bitter historie om en ung mand, der får ørerne i statsmaskineriet i tiden efter kommunisternes magtovertagelse i Tjekkoslovakiet i 1948: Ludvik Jahn vil gerne gøre indtryk på sin smukke medstuderende Marketa, og mens hun deltager i et kursus i partiskoling, sender Ludvik hende et kort med antikommunistiske ytringer - for sjov!Men kortet bliver opsnappet, Ludvik bliver stillet til ansvar for sin tekst - og dette får katastrofale følger for hans liv og karriere. Han bliver smidt ud af universitetet, ekskluderet af partiet og sendt i tvangsarbejde. Men han klarer sig. Og da han nogle år senere møder dén, der var ansvarlig for hans eksklusion af partiet, bliver der mulighed for en sød hævn.

Genudgivelse i pocket-format.I februar 1948 stod kommunisternes leder Klement Gottwald frem på en balkon i Prag for at tale til tusindvis af borgere. Han var omgivet af sine kammerater, og lige ved siden af ham stod Clementis. Det var koldt, og Gottwald var barhovedet. Den omsorgsfulde Clementis tog sin pelshue af og anbragte den på Gottwalds hoved. Fire år senere blev Clementis anklaget for forræderi og hængt. Propagandaafdelingen slettede ham øjeblikkelig fra historien og fjernede ham fra alle fotografier. Siden har Gottwald stået tilbage alene på balkonen, og kun Clementis' hue på Gottwalds hoved er tilbage.

Vittigt og overrumplende afdækker Milan Kundera tilværelsens ulidelige lethed, manglen på virkeligt engagement i såvel kærlighed som politik, og han undrer sig over menneskets forbløffende evne til at glemme såvel historiens fejltagelser som deres egne. Fortællingen om lægen Thomas, der efter russernes indtog i Prag 1968 degraderes til vinduespudser. Skønt hans livsstil som Don Juan med utallige elskerinder følger og tilbeder hans kone Tereza ham overalt.

A provocative and rousing insight into European politics from one of the world's greatest writers. 'One of his most powerful works.' Financial Times'A pan-European intellectual force.' TimesIn a moment of historic peril and uncertainty in mainland Europe, Milan Kundera makes the case for Central Europe as the nucleus of European values and as a lightning rod for its potential dangers. For the countries that make up this region where democracy is under continued threat from Russian oppression, language and culture play an active role in affirming national identity. And each of these countries - Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia - has been historically overlooked by the major powers of Western Europe. But Kundera cautions that this blindness puts Europe's cultural and political independence at risk, a warning that feels increasingly relevant to our current moment, and our future.

A provocative and rousing essay collection from one of Europe's greatest writers. The people of Central Europe cannot be separated from European history;

A short collection of brilliant early essays that offers a fascinating context for the Milan Kundera's subsequent career and holds a mirror to much recent European history. It is also remarkably prescient with regard to Russia's current aggression in Ukraine and its threat to the rest of Europe.Milan Kundera's early nonfiction work feels especially resonant in our own time. In these pieces, Kundera pleads the case of the ?small nations? of Europe who, by culture, are Western with deep roots in Europe, despite Russia imposing its own Communist political regimes in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Ukraine, and elsewhere. Kundera warns that the real tragedy here is not Russia but Europe, whose own identity and culture are directly challenged and threatened in a way that could lead to their destruction. He is sounding the alarm, which chimes loud and clear in our own twenty-first century.The 1983 essay translated by Edmund White (?The Tragedy of Central Europe?), and the 1967 lecture delivered to the Czech Writers' Union in the middle of the Prague Spring by the young Milan Kundera (?Literature and the Small Nations?), translated for the first time by Linda Asher, are both written in a voice that is at once personal, vehement, and anguished. Here, Kundera appears already as one of our great European writers and truly our contemporary. Each piece is prefaced by a short presentation by French historian Pierre Nora and Czech-born French political scientist Jacques Rupnik.

Jacques and His Master is a deliciously witty and entertaining "variation" on Diderot's novel Jacques le Fatalist, written for Milan Kundera's "private pleasure" in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia.When the "heavy Russian irrationality" fell on Czechoslovakia, Milan Kundera explains, he felt drawn to the spirit of the eighteenth century—"And it seemed to me that nowhere was it to be found more densely concentrated than in that banquet of intelligence, humor, and fantasy, Jacques le Fataliste."The upshot was this "Homage to Diderot," which has now been performed throughout the United States and Europe. Here, Jacques and His Master, newly translated by Simon Callow, is a text that will delight Kundera's admirers throughout the English-speaking world.

Milan Kundera’s brilliant new collection of essays is a passionate defense of art in an era that, he argues, no longer values art or beauty. With the same dazzling mix of emotion and ideas that characterizes his bestselling novels, the internationally acclaimed author revisits the artists whose works help us better understand what it means to be human. Elegant, startlingly original, and provocative, Encounter combines many of the author’s signature themes with personal reflections and stories.

"Kundera once more delivers a seductive, intelligent entertainment ... [with] elegance and grace." -- Washington Post Book World"Nothing short of masterful." -- NewsweekA brilliant novel set in contemporary Prague, by one of the most distinguished writers of our time.A man and a woman meet by chance while returning to their homeland, which they had abandoned 20 years earlier when they chose to become exiles. Will they manage to pick up the thread of their strange love story, interrupted almost as soon as it began and then lost in the tides of history? The truth is that after such a long absence "their memories no longer match." We always believe that our memories coincide with those of the person we loved, that we experienced the same thing. But this is just an illusion. Only those who return after 20 years, like Ulysses returning to his native Ithaca, can be dazzled and astounded by observing the goddess of ignorance first-hand.Kundera is the only author today who can take dizzying concepts such as absence, memory, forgetting, and ignorance, and transform them into material for a novel, masterfully orchestrating them into a polyphonic and moving work.