The Unbearable Lightness of Being : ‘A dark and brilliant achievement’ (Ian McEwan)

The bestselling modern classic for fans of Dostoyevsky’s White Nights and Sabahattin Ali’sMadonna in a Fur Coat: the iconic novel of love, angst and politics in communist Czechoslovakia. A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon: a man torn between his love for her and his womanising. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals, while her other lover stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities.

In a world where lives are shaped by choices and events, and everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance and weight – and we feel ‘the unbearable lightness of being’. Kundera’s classic provoked a whole generation, encompassing passion and philosophy, body and soul, the Prague Spring and modern America, political acts and private desires, comedy and tragedy – in fact, all of human existence. What readers are saying:’Some books change your mind, some change your heart, the very best change your whole world …

A mighty piece of work, that will shape your life forever.”One of the best books I’ve ever read … A book about love and life, full of surprises. Beautiful.”This book is going to change your life …

It definitely leaves you with a hangover after you’re done reading.”Kundera writes about love as if in a trance so the beauty of it is enchanting and dreamy … Will stay with you.”Shamelessly clever … Exhilaratingly subversive and funny.’ Independent’A modern classic …

As relevant now as when it was first published. ‘ John Banville