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In 1979 the Czechoslovak government took away Milan Kundera’s citizenship. The reason was a book: in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting he had called the communist leader Gustáv Husák “the president of forgetting”. Kundera, born in Brno in 1929, had already been expelled from the Communist Party in 1950, seen his books banned after the Prague Spring and left for France in 1975 to teach at the University of Rennes. He became a French citizen in 1981, switched to writing his novels in French in the 1990s and got his Czech citizenship back in 2019. His novels mix love stories, politics and short philosophical essays, and have been published in more than fifty languages. This guide covers his 13 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 13 key books · 1963–2013 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Milan Kundera wrote ten novels, one story collection and several books of essays. The best known are The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), The Joke (1967) and The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979). Start with The Unbearable Lightness of Being; below are all 13 key books in order, what each one is about, and which to read next.
Where to Start with Milan Kundera
If you want his most famous novel
→ The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984) — love and politics in Prague after 1968.
If you want his first novel
→ The Joke (1967) — one joke on a postcard, and the life it ruins.
If you want the book that cost him his citizenship
→ The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979) — seven parts about memory and forgetting.
If you want his ideas about the novel itself
→ The Art of the Novel (1986) — essays and interviews on how he writes.
13 Milan Kundera Books, in Order
Laughable Loves
Stories of seduction, games and self-deception in 1960s Czechoslovakia, first published in Czech in three small volumes between 1963 and 1968 and gathered into one book in 1970. The best known, “The Hitchhiking Game”, follows a young couple on holiday who start playing strangers and cannot stop. The English edition appeared in 1974.
The Joke
Ludvik Jahn, a student in the early 1950s, sends his girlfriend a postcard mocking the official optimism of the day. The joke gets him thrown out of the party and the university and sent to a penal unit of miners. Years later he plans his revenge on the man who expelled him. Published in Czech as Žert in 1967, it was filmed by Jaromil Jireš in 1969; after the 1968 invasion the book and the film were banned.
Life Is Elsewhere
The life of Jaromil, a young poet raised by a possessive mother, who embraces the communist revolution of 1948 and finds that his lyric enthusiasm can serve it in harmful ways. Banned at home, the novel first appeared in French in 1973 and won the Prix Médicis for a foreign novel that year.
Farewell Waltz
Five days in a spa town: a famous trumpeter, Klíma, learns that a nurse, Růžena, is pregnant and may be carrying his child, while his friend Jakub prepares to leave the country with a poison pill in his pocket. A dark comedy of chance and bad intentions, it was first published in French in 1976 and translated into English as The Farewell Party, later Farewell Waltz.
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
A novel in seven parts, linked by themes rather than plot: a Czech exile, Tamina, trying to recover the letters that hold her memories of her dead husband; a former communist trying to retrieve his old love letters; and essays on laughter, angels and political erasure. Published in French in 1979, it was the book that led Czechoslovakia to strip him of his citizenship that year.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Tomas, a Prague surgeon who cannot give up other women, his wife Tereza, his lover the painter Sabina, and her lover Franz, before and after the Soviet invasion of 1968. Kundera interrupts the story with short essays, starting from Nietzsche’s idea of eternal return. First published in French in 1984 and in English the same year, it was filmed in 1988 by Philip Kaufman, with Daniel Day-Lewis and Juliette Binoche.
The Art of the Novel
Seven texts on the European novel from Cervantes to Kafka and Broch, including two interviews about his own methods and a dictionary of the words that matter to his books. It is the clearest statement of his belief that the novel explores human existence in ways other forms cannot. English translation 1988.
Immortality
The novel begins when the narrator, called Kundera, sees an older woman at a swimming pool wave with the gesture of a young girl, and invents a character, Agnes, from it. Her story, with her husband Paul and sister Laura, runs alongside chapters about Goethe and Bettina von Arnim and the desire to be remembered. It was the last novel he wrote in Czech.
Testaments Betrayed
Essays on how artists are misread and betrayed after their deaths, starting with Max Brod’s handling of Kafka’s papers, and moving through Hemingway, Stravinsky, Janáček and the translation of novels. English translation 1995.
Slowness
A short novel set over one night at a French château turned hotel, where the narrator and his wife stay while a conference of entomologists goes on. Their weekend runs alongside an eighteenth-century tale of seduction, Vivant Denon’s Point de lendemain, set in the same place. It was his first novel written in French.
Identity
Chantal and Jean-Marc, a couple living in France, begin to doubt they know each other after she says that men no longer turn to look at her. He starts sending her anonymous love letters, and the game unsettles both of them.
Ignorance
Irena and Josef, two Czech emigrés who left after 1968, return to Prague after the fall of communism and meet by chance. Kundera sets their homecoming against Odysseus’s return to Ithaca: neither finds the country, or the people, they remember. It was first published in Spanish in 2000, before the French edition.
The Festival of Insignificance
His last novel, and his shortest: four friends walk around Paris, talking about navels, a birthday party and an anecdote about Stalin, Khrushchev and twenty-four partridges. It appeared first in Italian in 2013, then in French in 2014 and English in 2015.
In What Order to Read Milan Kundera
None of Kundera’s novels continue one another, so there is no series order. The useful division is by language: his fiction up to Immortality (1990) was written in Czech and deal mostly with life under communism and exile, while the four novels from Slowness (1995) on were written in French and are shorter, lighter and set mostly in France.
Most readers start with The Unbearable Lightness of Being, then go back to The Joke and The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. Read The Art of the Novel once you know one or two novels, since it explains the methods you will have noticed.
A reading path
1. The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
2. The Joke (1967)
3. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979)
4. Immortality (1990)
5. Ignorance (2000)
Everything Else Milan Kundera Published
Beyond the 13 key books: 7 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Poetry and plays
5
5 books · 1953–1981
- 1953Man, a Wide GardenČlověk zahrada širá, his first poetry collection, in Czech
- 1955The Last MayPoslední máj, a long poem, in Czech
- 1957MonologuesMonology, poems, in Czech
- 1962The Owners of the KeysMajitelé klíčů, his first play
- 1981Jacques and His Mastera play in homage to Diderot; English 1985
Later essays
2
2 books · 2005–2009
- 2005The Curtainessays on the history and art of the novel
- 2009Encounteressays on writers, painters and composers
The years · 1929–2023
Quick facts about Milan Kundera
- Known for
- Milan Kundera is known for novels that mix love stories, politics and philosophical essays, most of all The Unbearable Lightness of Being, set in Prague around the Soviet invasion of 1968.
- 1929
- Born in Brno, Czechoslovakia
- 1967
- The Joke published in Czech
- 1995
- Slowness, his first novel in French
- 2023
- Dies in Paris, aged 94
- Born
- 1 April 1929, Brno, Czechoslovakia; his father, Ludvík Kundera, was a pianist who studied with Janáček
- Died
- 11 July 2023, Paris, aged 94
- Emigrated
- To France in 1975, to teach at the University of Rennes
- Citizenship
- Stripped of Czechoslovak citizenship in 1979; French citizen from 1981; Czech citizenship restored in 2019
- Married
- Věra Kundera (née Hrabánková), in 1967
- Honours
- Jerusalem Prize (1985); Légion d’honneur (1990)
- Archive
- The Milan Kundera Library at the Moravian Library in Brno, opened on 1 April 2023
The red mark is 1984: The Unbearable Lightness of Being, his best-known novel.
How Milan Kundera Writes: Stories Interrupted by Thought
Kundera writes as a narrator who stops the story to think aloud. In The Unbearable Lightness of Being he opens with Nietzsche’s eternal return and only then introduces Tomas, and in Immortality he puts himself in the book as the author inventing his heroine. He described the novel as a form that does not assert things but searches and asks questions.
His books are built like music, which he studied with his father: short numbered chapters, several “parts” that return to the same themes, and in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting seven parts that share almost no characters. Recurring words — lightness, kitsch, laughter, forgetting — carry as much of the structure as plot does.
Politics is the backdrop rather than the subject. He objected to reading The Joke as an anti-Stalinist tract, calling it a love story. His characters are usually ordinary people, lovers, doctors and poets, whose private choices are bent by history. From Slowness on, with the novels written in French, history recedes further and the books become short, comic variations on identity and memory.
Watch
Milan Kundera on Apostrophes, 1984
Bernard Pivot interviews Milan Kundera on the French programme Apostrophes (Antenne 2, 27 January 1984) about eroticism in The Unbearable Lightness of Being and his other work. In French. From the official INA Culture channel.
Frequently asked questions about Milan Kundera’s books
How many books has Milan Kundera written?
Ten novels, from The Joke (1967) to The Festival of Insignificance (2013), plus the story collection Laughable Loves and four books of essays. This page covers 13 key books; the list under “Everything else” adds his early Czech poetry, his plays and two later essay collections.
What are Milan Kundera’s books in order?
Laughable Loves (1963), The Joke (1967), Life Is Elsewhere (1973), Farewell Waltz (1976), The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979), The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), The Art of the Novel (1986), Immortality (1990), Testaments Betrayed (1993), Slowness (1995), Identity (1998), Ignorance (2000) and The Festival of Insignificance (2013).
Where should I start with Milan Kundera?
With The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), his best-known novel and the clearest example of his mix of love story, history and essay. If you prefer something shorter and more direct, start with his first novel, The Joke.
What is Milan Kundera’s most famous book?
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), about the surgeon Tomas, his wife Tereza and the painter Sabina in Prague around the Soviet invasion of 1968. It won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was filmed in 1988.
Was The Unbearable Lightness of Being made into a film?
Yes. Philip Kaufman directed the 1988 film, written by Kaufman and Jean-Claude Carrière, with Daniel Day-Lewis as Tomas, Juliette Binoche as Tereza and Lena Olin as Sabina. The Joke was filmed earlier, in 1969, by Jaromil Jireš, from a screenplay he wrote with Kundera.
Did Milan Kundera write in Czech or French?
Both. His fiction up to Immortality (1990) was written in Czech, though several novels first appeared in French translation because they were banned at home. His essay books from The Art of the Novel (1986) on were written in French, and from Slowness (1995) on so were his novels.
Why did Milan Kundera lose his Czech citizenship?
The Czechoslovak government revoked it in 1979, after The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, in which he called the communist leader Gustáv Husák “the president of forgetting”. He became a French citizen in 1981, and the Czech Republic restored his citizenship in 2019.
What was the 2008 allegation against Milan Kundera?
In October 2008 the Czech weekly Respekt published a 1950 police report, found by a researcher at the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, which named the student Milan Kundera as the person who told police about Miroslav Dvořáček, a young man who had returned to Czechoslovakia as an agent for Western intelligence. Dvořáček was sentenced to 22 years and served 14. Kundera denied the account, saying the events described did not happen, and the case was never resolved.
Did Milan Kundera win the Nobel Prize?
No. He was often named as a contender but never received it. His prizes include the Prix Médicis for a foreign novel (1973, for Life Is Elsewhere) and the Jerusalem Prize (1985).
Is Milan Kundera still alive?
No. He died in Paris on 11 July 2023, aged 94, after a long illness. He was born in Brno on 1 April 1929; his archive and a collection of his books are kept in the Milan Kundera Library in Brno, which opened on his last birthday.
Footnotes
- Milan Kundera — Encyclopædia Britannica
- Kundera, Milan — Encyclopedia.com (works and awards)
- Kundera, Milan — Encyclopedia.com (Contemporary Authors)
- Czech writer Milan Kundera dies in France at 94 — Expats.cz, 2023
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“We constantly rewrite our own biographies and continually give matters new meanings.”
— Milan Kundera, interview with Ian McEwan, Granta (1984)
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