Milan Kundera Quotes


We don't know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don't understand our name at all, we don't know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.


Citations

Kundera, Milan. Immortality. Translated by Peter Kussi, Grove Weidenfeld, 1991, p. 115.

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Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera
  • Born: April 1, 1929
  • Nationality: Czech
  • Profession: Writer

Milan Kundera is a Czech writer who went into exile in France in 1975, becoming a naturalised French citizen in 1981. Kundera's Czechoslovak citizenship was revoked in 1979. He received his Czech citizenship back in 2019. He "sees himself as a French writer and insists his work should be studied as French literature and classified as such in book stores".