Biography of Milan Kundera
Prizes and Awards 1964 States prize of the CSSR
His father, Ludvík Kundera (1891-1971), was a musicologist
and rector at Brno University. Milan
Kundera wrote his first poems during high school. After World War II, he worked
as a tradesman and a jazz musician before beginning his studies
at Prague’s Charles
University where he studied musicology, film and literature and
aesthetics. After graduating in
1952, Kundera became assistant and later professor with the film faculty at
Prague’s Academy of Performing Arts, lecturing in world literature. During this time, he published poems,
essays and stage plays and joined the editorial staff at the literary magazines
“Literarni Noviny” and “Listy.” Kundera
joined the communist party in 1948 full of enthusiasm, as did so many
intellectuals. In 1950, he got
expelled from the party due to individualistic tendencies but rejoined from
1956 to 1970. Throughout the 50s,
Kundera worked as a translator, essayist and author of stage plays and, in
1953, he published his first book.
Although Kundera had published several poetry collections,
he gained notoriety with the publication of a collection of short stories
entitled “Laughable Loves“, written between 1958 and 1968. His first novel, “The Joke,“ written in
1967, deals with Stalinism. After
the Soviet invasion on the 21st of August, 1968, Kundera, as one of
the leading figures of the failed radical movement the “Prague Spring,” lost
his teaching position and his books were banned from libraries the country
over. In 1970, his books were
banned from publication. His
second novel, “Life Is Elsewhere”, was published in Paris in 1973. 
In 1975, Kundera became guest professor at the University in Rennes
in Bretagne, France. He was
deprived of Czechoslovakian citizenship in 1979 in reaction to his “Book of
Laughter and Forgetting.” The
novels that followed were banned from publication in the CSSR. He gained his French citizenship in
1981. Since 1985, Kundera has given only written interviews,
feeling himself often misquoted.
In 1986, Kundera published his first work written in French, the essay
“L'Art du Roman“ (The Art of the Novel).
In 1988, he published his first novel written in French,
“Immortality.” Having been a
lecture in comparative language sciences at the University of Rennes for
several years, in 1978 Kundera became an author with the noted publishing house
Gallimard. In his in 1994 essay
“Testaments Trahis” (Testaments Betrayed), Kundera addressed adulterators,
interpreters and translators by whom he felt his work was often
mistreated. He allowed the
translation of his works again in Germany while, in France, he personally
oversaw the Czech transcription of all his works. Kunderas most recent novels include “Slowness,” published in
1994, and “Identity,” published in 1998. In 2000, Kundera published “La Ignorancia,” up until now
only published in Spanish.
Publication in other languages is forthcoming. As he often makes clear, Kundera derives inspirations from
the Renaissance and such writers as Boccacio, Rabelais, Sterne, Diderot, but
also from the works of Musil, Gombrowitz, Broch, Kafka and Heidegger. Not only are Kunderas books classics of
the 20th century, Kundera is among it’s greatest novelists. Unlike many more public authors,
Kundera prefers to disappear behind his books, anonymous in his own way. Kundera currently lives with his wife,
Vera Hrabankova, in Paris.
1968 Prize of the authors confederation of the CSSR
1973 Prix Médicis for the best foreign novel published in France (“Life is
Elsewhere")
1978 Premio letterario Mondello for his book “The Farewell Party” in Italy
1981 American Common Wealth Award for his complete works
1982 European literatur prize
1983 Doctor honoris causa of the University of Michigan, USA
1985 Prize of Jerusalem
1987 Crititians prize of the Académie Francaise for his book "The Art of
the Novel"
1987 Nelly-Sachs-Preis
1987 Austrian states prize for European literature
1990 Knight of the Légion Étrangčre (France)
1991 First prize for foreign literature of the English newspaper The
Independent
1994 Jaroslav-Seifert-Prize for his novel „Immortality"
1995 Czech medal of merits for his contribution to the renewal of democracy
2000 Herder-Preis of the University of Vienna / Austria
