Chinese readers mourn death of literary giant Milan Kundera

Czech-born writer Milan Kundera died in Paris where he has lived for decades, at the age of 94, the Milan Kundera Library said on Wednesday.

Receiving the news of Kundera's death, many Chinese netizens sent messages of condolence and paid tribute to this notable writer online.

Kundera was born in the southeastern Czech city of Brno in 1929. He studied in Prague at a young age, translated the French poet Apollinaire and wrote poetry and short stories of his own. After emigrating to France with his wife in 1975, he became one of the major authors of the publishing house Gallimard in Paris and has been writing books in French since the 1980s.

The novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (1984) is generally regarded as his best-known work and has seen nearly 300 million copies distributed around the world. It was turned into a film starring Juliette Binoche and Daniel Day-Lewis in 1987.
Kundera's works were first introduced to China in the 1970s but didn't garner much attention until "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" was published in China in 1987. For quite a long time, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," "Life is Elsewhere" (Kundera's second novel telling the story of a young poet who fails to break free from his adoring mother and dies an absurd death) and "Kitsch" (a concept he frequently mentions in "The Unbearable Lightness of Being") have been buzzwords among the younger Chinese generations and literature lovers.

Many Chinese writers have also been influenced by this Czech-French novelist, poet and essayist. Nobel laureate Mo Yan, writer and professor Wang Anyi, as well as writer Bi Feiyu have published articles on their research into Kundera's work.