Milan Kundera

Milan Kundera

WRITER

Milan Kundera was born on April 1st 1929 in Brno, Czechoslovakia. He wrote his first poems during his high school years. After World War II he worked as a jazz musician before going to college. He studied music, film and literature at university in Prague. He moved on to become a professor at the film faculty of the Prague Academy of Performing Arts. He also published poems, essays and stage plays. In the same period of time he joined the editorial staff at the literature magazines "Literarni noviny" and "Listy". Kundera joined the Communist Party in 1948, as many other Czech intellectuals did at that time. In 1950 he got expelled from the Party because of "individualistic tendencies".

  • When was
    Milan Kundera born?

    Milan Kundera was born on Monday, April 1, 1929

  • Where was
    Milan Kundera born?

    Milan Kundera was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia

  • How old is
    Milan Kundera?

    Milan Kundera is 96

Best Quotes

  • The word change, so dear to our Europe, has been given a new meaning: it no longer means a new stage of coherent development (as it was unders...
  • A route differs from a road not only because it is solely intended for vehicles, but also because it is merely a line that connects one point with another. A route has no meaning in itself; its meaning derives entirely from the two points that it connects. A road is a tribute to space. Every stretch of road has meaning in itself and invites us to stop. A route is the triumphant devaluation of space, which thanks to it has been reduced to a mere obstacle to human movement and a waste of time.
  • A worker may be the hammer's master, but the hammer still prevails. A tool knows exactly how it is meant to be handled, while the user of the tool can only have an approximate idea.
  • Eroticism is like a dance: one always leads the other.
  • No great movement designed to change the world can bear to be laughed at or belittled. Mockery is a rust that corrodes all it touches.
  • Nudity is the uniform of the other side... nudity is a shroud.
  • Mysticism and exaggeration go together. A mystic must not fear ridicule if he is to push all the way to the limits of humility or the limits of delight.
  • We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always a sketch. No sketch is not quite the right word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch of nothing, an outline with no picture.
  • We don't know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don't understand our name at all, we don't know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.
  • The reign of imagagology begins where history ends.

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