Born in Czechoslovakia, Milan Kundera sought exile in France in 1975, where he lived until his recent death at 94 years of age. He began his career writing poetry, placing the emotional experience at the heart of his work and willingly moving away from propagandistic works glorifying the ideals of the Communist Party. His first two books, The Joke (1967), and Laughable Loves (1968), explore human relationships and the difficulty of language. Written shortly after the Soviet invasion or Prague Spring, The Joke depicts a situation where freedom of speech is muzzled, and his faith in the Communist Party has started eroding. His next novel, Life is Elsewhere (1969), which deals with his communist past, went on to receive the Prix Médicis as early as 1973 for its French translation.
In 1975, the political climate in central Europe was such that he decided to leave the erstwhile Czechoslovakia and seek exile in France. For the first time, he could write freely, without fear of being censored. He went on to obtain French nationality in 1981 (after being stripped of his Czech one in 1979). He wrote his most famous novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984) while living in Paris. It was an immediate success and appealed to intellectual circles and readers all over Europe and America, and all the way to India. The opening lines of the novel, discussing Nietzsche’s theory of eternal return, are etched in the minds of legions of teenagers, as are the adventures of Franz and his libertine way of life. Kundera’s goal was to lend new credibility to the genre of fiction, by infusing it with strong philosophical themes revolving around one’s past, memory and amnesia, nostalgia and self-ridicule.
It was not until 1993 that he started writing exclusively in French, calling it his “second mother tongue”. In doing so, he followed in the footsteps of several European writers who adopted French as their tongue. One thinks of Irish writer Samuel Beckett, celebrated author of Waiting for Godot, Romanian playwright Eugène Ionesco, Swiss author Agota Kristof, and Spanish writer Jorge Semprún. Even today, many of France’s celebrated authors took to French only later in life: Lebanese-born author Amin Maalouf, Moroccan author Tahar Ben Jelloun, Russian writer Andreï Makine, and even American author Jonathan Littell come to mind.
What does it do to a writer when they write in a language that is not their own? Some detractors see in this a drying up of language, while others argue it becomes more limpid. Even before taking up French as his exclusive language, Kundera used to rewrite the translations of his works so that they were as close as possible to what he intended. The reason why he chose to write in French was never explicitly explained, but it seems that he wanted to embrace French culture fully. In total, Kundera published four novels in French (in 1995, 1998, 2003 and 2014), and several essays. And despite the fall of the communist regime, he chose to stay on in France.
Throughout the 20th century, France attracted many artists and intellectuals looking for a climate of freedom or creative stimulation. While eminent figures like Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, and James Baldwin are the most cited, there are several Indian artists who also called Paris their home in the 1950s, some even remaining there till the end of their lives. Among them was painter S H Raza, the biggest retrospective on whose work outside of India was held at Centre Pompidou earlier this year. Would these two have met each other in intellectual circles? One will never know.
Internationally recognised, translated into more than 80 languages — including Malayalam, and soon Tamil — Kundera stopped giving interviews back in 1985. The way he conceived Europe in his essays, particularly the considering of central Europe as the heart of European culture, continues to be influential.
For readers interested in reading his translated works, I am happy to announce that the French Institute in India is set to open French corners in major bookstores in India, starting with Kunzum in Vasant Vihar on August 12. There, readers will be able to access all major French works in translation, including classics, and a curated contemporary section.
The writer is Ambassador of France to India
