Milan Kundera is one of the few Czech writers who have achieved wide international recognition. In his native Czechoslovakia, Kundera has been regarded as an important author and intellectual since his early twenties. Each of his creative works and contributions to the public political and cultural discourse has provoked a lively debate in the context of its time. In the first part of his creative career Kundera was a Communist, although from the beginning his fellow believers considered him an unorthodox thinker. His story is that of many Czech intellectuals of his generation: it is the story of freeing oneself of Marxist dogma and of gaining and communicating important insights based on the traumatic experience of life under totalitarianism in Eastern and Central Europe.

Kundera is an extremely private person who considers the details of his personal life "nobody's business." This attitude is consistent with the teachings of...