The bestselling modern classic for fans of Dostoyevsky's White Nights and Sabahattin Ali's Madonna in a Fur Coat: the iconic novel of love, angst and politics in communist Czechoslovakia.
A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon: a man torn between his love for her and his womanising. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals, while her other lover stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities. In a world where lives are shaped by choices and events, and everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance and weight - and we feel 'the unbearable lightness of being'.
Kundera's classic provoked a whole generation, encompassing passion and philosophy, body and soul, the Prague Spring and modern America, political acts and private desires, comedy and tragedy - in fact, all of human existence.
What readers are saying:
'Some books change your mind, some change your heart, the very best change your whole world .'
'One of the best books I've ever read . . . A book about love and life, full of surprises. Beautiful.'
'This book is going to change your life . . . It definitely leaves you with a hangover after you're done reading.'
'Kundera writes about love as if in a trance so the beauty of it is enchanting and dreamy . . . Will stay with you.'
'A cult figure.' Guardian
'A dark and brilliant achievement.' Ian McEwan
'Shamelessly clever . . . Exhilaratingly subversive and funny.' Independent
'A modern classic . . . As relevant now as when it was first published. ' John Banville
