Milan Kundera

"Irresistible. . . . Slowness is an ode to sensuous leisure, to the enjoyment of pleasure rather than just the search for it." -- MirabellaMilan Kundera's lightest novel, a divertimento, an opera buffa, Slowness is also the first of this author's fictional works to have been written in French. Disconcerted and enchanted, the reader follows the narrator of Slowness through a midsummer's night in which two tales of seduction, separated by more than two hundred years, interweave and oscillate between the sublime and the comic. Underlying this libertine fantasy is a profound meditation on contemporary life: about the secret bond between slowness and memory, about the connection between our era's desire to forget and the way we have given ourselves over to the demon of speed. And about "dancers" possessed by the passion to be seen, for whom life is merely a perpetual show emptied of every intimacy and every joy.

Readers are taken through a midsummer's night in which two tales of seduction, separated by more than 200 years, interweave and oscillate between the sublime and the ridiculous. They provide merely a narrative framework for Kundera's novel, within which is condensed existential analysis.

"A defense of fiction and a lesson in the art of reading." --New York Times Book Review"Testaments Betrayed is to be savored paragraph by paragraph. . . . It must be purchased, read, pondered, and argued within the margins. And frequently reread." -- Washington PostA brilliant and thought-provoking essay from one of the twentieth century's masters of fiction, Testaments Betrayed is written like a novel: the same characters appear and reappear throughout the nine parts of the book, as do the principal themes that preoccupy the author. Kundera is a passionate defender of the moral rights of the artist and the respect due a work of art and its creator's wishes. The betrayal of both--often by their most passionate proponents--is one of the key ideas that informs this strikingly original and elegant book.

'A masterpiece' (Salman Rushdie) by the author of modern classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being.'It took the temperature of the age as no other book did. It was the great novel of the end of European Communism: a novel of ideas and eroticism, the surreal and the naturalistic.' Howard Jacobson'One is torn between profound pleasure in the novel's execution and wonder at the pain that inspired it.' Ian McEwan One freezing day in 1948, Klement Gottwald addresses Prague, wearing his comrade Clementis' fur cap - and Communist Czechoslovakia is born. But after being hanged for treason, Clementis is airbrushed out of propaganda photographs. All that remains is a bare wall, and his cap. So begins an unforgettable voyage through seven narratives, interspersed with luminous meditations on politics, philosophy, music and history. A dissident seeks his first lover - now a Party loyalist - to persuade her to return his romantic letters. A married couple manages their ménage-à-trois as Mother moves in. A clandestine horoscope writer is questioned. An émigré widow struggles to reconstruct memories of her late husband, before finding herself on an island of children. A butcher's wife embarks on an affair with a poetic student. And one man prepares to cross the border . . . What readers are saying:'Kundera embrace politics, sex, philosophy and history, with a seen-it-all cynicism that nevertheless manages to be fascinating and even uplifting ... It was addictive and fun, sexy and cool, easy to read, and made me feel brighter, switched on, and more alive.''You must read this novel. Can't tell you about it, you just have to do it yourself. Its bonkers-brilliant! Phantasmagoric originality like this comes very seldom in a reader's so-sweet life.''Kundera's unique writing style comes as a revelation ... This holds a special place in my reading history as the one book that I instantly began re-reading as soon as I finished it.''Absolutely enchanted me. It's such an unique novel. It speaks of so many things, from communism and regimes to love and art. For me personally, it is a perfect book.''I am not going to spoil the story here, but while the story is not supernatural in any way, it takes on a fantastical flavor, full of mysteries and strange emotions ... It is obvious that Kundera has thought a lot about life, about the meaning of life, and lets the reader in on his secrets.''Such a unique writer, Kundera! What a way he has to shine the brightest light on the deepest corners of human psyche.'

"A thoughtful, intricate, ambivalent novel with the reach of greatness in it." --John Updike"It is impossible to do justice here to the subtleties, comedy, and wisdom of this very beautiful novel. Milan Kundera is an artist, clearly one of the best to be found anywhere, who says that the good (and evil) that issues from men's souls matters much more than the deeds of a State. And he says it with passion, with good humor, and with love." --Salman RushdieAll too often, this brilliant novel of thwarted love and revenge miscarried has been read for its political implications. Now, more than a quarter century after The Joke was first published and several years after the collapse of the Soviet-imposed Czechoslovak regime, it becomes easier to put such implications into perspective in favor of valuing the book (and all Milan Kundera 's work) as what it truly is: great, stirring literature that sheds new light on the eternal themes of human existence. This edition provides English-language readers an important further means toward revaluation of The Joke. For reasons he describes in his Author's Note, Milan Kundera devoted much time to creating a completely revised translation that reflects his original as closely as any translation possibly can: reflects it in its fidelity not only to the words and syntax but also to the characteristic dictions and tonalities of the novel's narrators. The result is nothing less than the restoration of a classic.

Søstrene Agnes og Laura er to motpoler av kvinnelighet, den ene rolig og reflektert, den andre ustabil og dramatisk. Mellom dem står Paul, som er gift med Agnes, men som Laura vil ha. En roman om kjærligheten, livet og døden, det trivielle og meningsfylte, kunsten og erotikken, tilfeldighetene, refleksjonen og udødeligheten.