Milan Kundera, author of Unbearable Lightness of Being, dies at 94

By Handan Kazanci

ISTANBUL (AA) – Czech-born French writer Milan Kundera, perhaps best known for his novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, has died at the age of 94, local media reported on Wednesday.

Czech station CT24 reported the passing of the legendary writer, who was born in 1921 in Brno, then part of the Czechoslovak Republic.

Kundera was forced into exile in France in 1975 due to his condemnation of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

In the mid-‘70s he settled in France and later acquired French citizenship. In 1979, his Czech citizenship was revoked and but in 2019 it was restored.

His internationally acclaimed 1984 novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, focusing on the lives of locals during the 1968 Prague Spring, and exploring the artistic and intellectual life of t society, was translated into numerous languages, including Turkish. In 1988 the book was adapted into a film by American director Philip Kaufman.