Original title: Milan Kundera Biography Launches Full Disclosure of Legendary Writer’s Life Footprint
If you want to select the “contemporary foreign writers who have the greatest influence on contemporary Chinese writers”, there are two names that have to be mentioned: one is García Márquez, and the other is Milan Kundera.
Recently, Shanghai Translation Publishing House released Milan Kundera’s graphic biography “Looking for Milan Kundera”. As the book’s girdle says, “We keep encountering him in our works, but we dare not approach him.”
Milan Kundera is one of the most read writers in the world and a successful stealth writer. For nearly 40 years, he has disappeared from public view due to his refusal to appear in the media and his extreme concern for the protection of personal privacy. From The Unbearable Lightness of Being to Living Elsewhere, to Celebrating Meaninglessness, which he wrote in his 80s, his stories and questions are unforgettable for readers, while he himself His own life and the centuries-old history implicated in his experience were sealed.
With the publication of the biography “Finding Milan Kundera”, the dusty archives will be opened, and the author Ariana Sherman, from first-hand interviews to the sorting out of historical clues, a map into Kundera’s hidden world fully presented to the reader.
Like most “Kundera fans”, Ariana Sherman has longed to meet Kundera, the author of “The Joke”, since she was 20 years old. In order to follow the footsteps of Kundera, she has been on the road to find Milan Kundera, traveling from Eastern Europe to Western Europe, from Prague to Rennes, from Corsica to the Isle of Beauty. Unlike other followers, Sherman met Kundera’s wife, Vera, with whom she reminisced about the writer’s past years. Therefore, the information cited in this biography is not only first-hand, but also approved by the Kundera couple.
Not only Kundera’s wife Vera, the author Sherman also interviewed publishers, filmmakers, TV anchors, etc. who have an intersection with Kundera. For the first time, the book fully discloses the facts and details of many past events, such as the first exposure of the relevant files of the Kundera couple being monitored by the Czech government, the emotional story between Kundera and his two wives, and the hardship of teaching literature classes in France. , was accused of being a government “whistleblower” and so on. The biography is also accompanied by more than 30 precious photos, such as photos of Kundera when he was young, class notes of students, certificates of nationality, photos of his first wife, etc.
Wang Dongliang, the translator of “Finding Milan Kundera,” said: “Reading Kundera is enjoyable and intellectual, and he usually opens the reader’s eyes, peeling off layers of truth about certain things that we are accustomed to ignore and how they relate to each other. It is also embarrassing to read Kundera, who always ruthlessly penetrates the essence of life, the essence of human nature, so that readers have to face their own existence, there is no way to escape.”
“The Unbearable Lightness of Life” translator, French translator, writer, and critic Xu Jun believes: “For Kundera, fiction is the possibility of expanding human existence, and in “The Unbearable Lightness of Life” In the book, I think the most important one is that Kundera reveals the inevitable situation caused by the two opposites. We need to get out of the two opposites, to seek, and to open up the possibility of everyone’s existence. Love is like this, life is like this, The same goes for relationships with others.”
Readers of different eras read the works of the same author and feel very different. Shanghai Translation Publishing House plans to republish all of Kundera’s works this year. “In his own literary world, Kundera has raised countless questions, but never gives the only answer. Similarly, every reader can have his own Kundera works.” Shanghai Translation Publishing House introduced, The design of the new version of Kundera’s works launched this time can deeply interact with readers. Readers can take off the cover and create a copy of Kundera’s works that is exclusive to them with the illustration stickers included in the book with their own exclusive insights. In addition, the publishing house will also plan and organize a number of reading sharing activities about Kundera.Return to Sohu, see more
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