89 Words followed by Prague

An invigorating pair of essays exploring exile, language and national identity from one of Europe’s most celebrated literary stars, the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

89 Words, published in 1985, is an expanded version of the dictionary of sorts that readers encountered in The Art of the Novel, and comprises a fascinating and rigorous interrogation of what exile, life in another language, and the betrayals of translations entail.

Prague, A Disappearing Poem, dating from 1980, meditates on questions of the culture of the ‘small nation’ that formed and lends specificity to Kundera’s work, and – as in A Kidnapped West – questions of the Soviet and Western attitudes to Czech culture.

Together, these provocative, elegant and wise essays remind familiar readers of Kundera’s presence – his inimitable voice – and for new readers, offer an introduction to his oeuvre: an access point into his fictional universe, characterised by devastating irony and subtlety of judgement.