Milan Kundera's Philosophy of the Novel

Mike Sutton reflects on the existential code of the novel.

- Mike Sutton

As well as several striking novels, notably The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), the Czech-French author Milan Kundera (1929-2023) wrote extensively about the role of literature in philosophy. He saw fiction as a perfect vehicle for certain types of philosophy, particularly postmodernism and existentialism. “For me”, he said, “the founder of the Modern Era is not only Descartes but also Cervantes.”

Kundera was born in Czechoslovakia, and died in Paris last July, aged 94. He was heavily influenced by his background, especially by the Prague Spring of 1968, when the Czech government revolted against Soviet rule. The Soviets sent the tanks in to crush the rebellion. That year Kundera’s books were banned in his own country and removed from public libraries. He was befriended by the French publisher Claude Gallimard, but he stuck it out in Czechoslovakia until 1975, when Gallimard finally persuaded him to move to Paris. By that time he had also been sacked from his Czech teaching position and forbidden to work.