![]() First edition (French) | |
Author | Milan Kundera |
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Original title | Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí |
Language | Czech |
Genre | Philosophical fiction |
Publisher | Gallimard (France) 68 Publishers (Czech language) Harper & Row (US) Faber & Faber (UK) |
Publication date | 1984 (French translation) 1985 (original Czech) |
Publication place | France |
Published in English | 1984 |
Media type | Print (hardcover) |
Pages | 393 (French 1st edition) |
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Czech: Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí) is a 1984 novel by Milan Kundera, about two women, two men, a dog, and their lives in the 1968 Prague Spring period of Czechoslovak history. Although written in 1982, the novel was not published until two years later, in a French translation (as L'insoutenable légèreté de l'être).[1] The same year, it was translated to English from Czech by Michael Henry Heim and excerpts of it were published in The New Yorker.[2] The original Czech text was published the following year.