Milan Kundera believed that truth lay in endless questioning
The Czech novelist, author of “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, died on July 11th, aged 94
Just before the Prague Spring in 1968, when the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia seemed briefly to relax, Milan Kundera managed to publish a novel about a joke. The joke, sent by a young man to a girlfriend on a postcard, read: “Optimism is the opium of the people! A ‘healthy’ atmosphere stinks of stupidity! Long live Trotsky!” It landed the young man in a lot of trouble.
This article appeared in the Obituary section of the print edition under the headline “When angels laugh”
From the July 22nd 2023 edition
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