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Milan Kundera Facts & Worksheets

Milan Kundera is a widely recognized 20th century Czechoslovakian-born, France-based writer.

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Milan Kundera is a widely recognized 20th century Czechoslovakian-born, France-based writer. His major contributions include The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Joke and The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, and has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature on a number of occasions.

See the fact file below for more information on the Milan Kundera or alternatively, you can download our 21-page Milan Kundera worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

Early Years

  • Born on April 1, 1929, in Brno, Czechoslovakia, Kundera grew up in a bourgeois family. In Bruno, his father, Ludvík Kundera, was a prominent musicologist and passed on his musical prowess to his son.
  • Kundera received his early education from a secondary school in Bruno and subsequently moved to Prague where he attended Charles University majoring in literature and aesthetics.
  • However, he shortly transferred to the Film Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Here he took a course in film direction and script writing.
  • Following graduation in 1952, he accepted a lectureship at the same institution, delivering lectures on world literature. He rejoined the Communist party in 1956 but was expelled again four years later.

Literary Career

  • The early literary work of Kundera is labeled staunchly pro-Communist. During the 1950s, he penned numerous plays and essays and translated literary works. He also published several poetry collections but was recognized for his short story collection, Laughable Loves. He also served as editor at literary magazines, like Literarni Noviny and Listy.
  • At first, Kundera wrote novels in Czech but as he permanently settled in France, he began writing in French in1993. In fact, during the 1980s, he took up the feat of revising the French translation of his earlier works.
  • Moreover, he now considers himself a French language author rather than Czech.
  • The Joke is marked as Kundera’s first novel published in 1967. The book focuses on the subject of Stalinism and satirizes totalitarianism during the Communist era. His blunt criticism on Soviet invasion in the novel resulted in banning of his works in Czechoslovakia.
  • In 1973, Kundera published his second work of fiction, Life is Elsewhere, in French. It charts the life of a fictional character, Jaromil, an idealistic poet, and his involvement in political scandal during and after the Second World War.
  • After writing a few controversial political works, Kundera explored the philosophical realm in The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The book was published in 1984 when he had already settled in France. It examines the concept of eternal return proposed by Nietzsche by which a single event or being is bound to recur infinitely in an infinite universe.
  • The book was followed by Immortality in 1990 which again has philosophical debate at its center rather than political. For his considerable contribution, Kundera was awarded the Jerusalem Prize, the Austrian State Prize, the Czech State Literature Prize, and the Ovid Prize.

Milan Kundera Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about Milan Kundera across 21 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Milan Kundera worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Milan Kundera who is a widely recognized 20th century Czechoslovakian-born, France-based writer. His major contributions include The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Joke and The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, and has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature on a number of occasions.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • Authors Online
  • Milan’s Milestones
  • Kundera’s Quote
  • Library Hunt
  • One-on-One
  • Europe is LIT
  • Poem for Tomas
  • Joke Time!
  • Czech-mates
  • 3-2-1, Go!

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Link will appear as Milan Kundera Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com - KidsKonnect, July 9, 2019

Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

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