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Encounter

Milan Kundera's new collection of essays is a passionate defense of art in an era that, he argues, no longer values art or beauty. Art is what we possess in the face of evil and the darker side of human nature. With the same mix of emotion and idea that characterizes his novels, Kundera revisits the...

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Main Author: Kundera, Milan
Other Authors: Asher, Linda
Format: Books Print Book
Language:English
French
Published: New York : Harper, c2010.
Edition:1st ed.
Subjects:
Literature, Modern > 20th century > History and criticism.
Music > History and criticism.
Painting > Appreciation.
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Summary:Milan Kundera's new collection of essays is a passionate defense of art in an era that, he argues, no longer values art or beauty. Art is what we possess in the face of evil and the darker side of human nature. With the same mix of emotion and idea that characterizes his novels, Kundera revisits the artists who remain important to him and whose works help us better understand the world we live in and what it means to be human. An astute reader of fiction, Kundera brings his extraordinary critical gifts to bear on the paintings of Francis Bacon, the music of Leoš Janáček, and the films of Federico Fellini, as well as the novels of Philip Roth, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Gabriel García Márquez, among others. He also seeks to restore to its rightful place the work of Anatole France and Curzio Malaparte, major writers who have fallen into obscurity. --From publisher description.
Item Description:"Originally published in French as Une rencontre in France in 2009 by Editions Gallimard"--T.p. verso.
Physical Description:x, 178 p. ; 22 cm.
ISBN:0061894419 :
9780061894411 :
Author Notes:One of the foremost contemporary Czech writers, Kundera is a novelist, poet, and playwright. His play The Keeper of the Keys, produced in Czechoslovakia in 1962, has long been performed in a dozen countries. His first novel, The Joke (1967), is a biting satire on the political atmosphere in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s. It tells the story of a young Communist whose life is ruined because of a minor indiscretion: writing a postcard to his girlfriend in which he mocks her political fervor.The Joke has been translated into a dozen languages and was made into a film, which Kundera wrote and directed. His novel Life Is Elsewhere won the 1973 Prix de Medicis for the best foreign novel. Kundera has been living in France since 1975. His books, for a long time suppressed in his native country, are once again published.The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), won him international fame and was a successful English-language film. In this work Kundera moves toward more universal and philosophically tinged themes, thus transforming himself from a political dissident into a writer of international significance.

(Bowker Author Biography)

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