Milan Kundera, author of 'The Unbearable Lightness of 存在', dies at 94
By Robert Muller and Jan Lopatka
PRAGUE, July 12 (Reuters) - Czech-born writer Milan Kundera, author of the novel "The Unbearable Lightness of 存在" who lived nearly five １０年間s in Paris after emigrating in disillusionment from his 共産主義者-支配するd 母国, has died at the age of 94.
The Moravian Library (MZK) in the Czech city of Brno, which houses Kundera's personal collection, said he died in his Paris apartment on Tuesday after a long illness.
Kundera won 全世界の accolades for the way he 描写するd 主題s and characters that floated between the mundane reality of everyday life and the lofty world of ideas.
Czech 総理大臣 Petr Fiala said his 作品 "reached whole 世代s of readers across all continents" while 大統領 Petr Pavel called him a "world-class writer".
"With his 運命／宿命 in life, he symbolized the eventful history of our country in the 20th century," Pavel said. "Kundera's 遺産／遺物 will live on in his 作品."
French 総理大臣 Elisabeth Borne said Kundera was "a writer and a 発言する／表明する that we will 行方不明になる".
"Milan Kundera's work is at the same time a 深い, human, intimate and distant 探検," she said.
Kundera was born in Brno in 1929 but emigrated to フラン in 1975 after 存在 ostracised for criticising the 1968 Soviet 侵略 of 共産主義者 Czechoslovakia that 鎮圧するd the Prague Spring 自由主義の 改革（する） movement.
He rarely gave interviews, believing writers should speak through their work, and lived out of the public 注目する，もくろむ.
Fellow Czech writer Karel Hvizdala told Czech Television he saw his friend last November and he was already in poor health.
"I r emember that on his hospital bed, which he had at home, he only had one 調書をとる／予約する - 'The 疫病／悩ます' by Albert Camus," he said.
'SUBTLE CONTRASTS'
Kundera's first novel, "The Joke", was published in 1967 and 申し込む／申し出d a scathing 描写 of the Czechoslovak 共産主義者 政権 and the 与党 of which he was still a member.
He 最終的に abandoned hopes that the party could be 改革（する）d in a democratic direction, and moved to フラン. Four years later, he was stripped of his Czechoslovak 市民権.
He told the French daily Le Monde in 1976 that to call his 作品 political was to oversimplify, and therefore obscure their true significance, but his 調書をとる／予約するs often took a political トン.
"The 調書をとる／予約する of Laughter and Forgetting" (1979) was a story written in seven parts that showed the 力／強力にする of 全体主義者 政権s to erase parts of history and create an 代案／選択肢 past - a work that the New York Times called "genius" in its review.
His best known 調書をとる／予約する, "The Unbearable Lightness of 存在" (1984), 焦点（を合わせる）d on the Prague Spring and its 騒然とした demise with Czechs despairing of 全体主義's 支配する 退却／保養地ing into obscure 私的な lives or emigrating to the West.
It was made into a film starring Daniel Day-吊りくさび and Juliette Binoche and directed by Philip Kaufman in 1988, 収入 two 学院 Award 指名／任命s.
Oxford University professor Timothy Garton Ash, author and historian 焦点（を合わせる）d on central Europe, said Kundera "did so much to implant the idea and culture of Central Europe into the imagination of the world".
Kundera once told an interviewer he considered himself French rather than an 亡命者. He wrote later novels in French.
Le Monde called him a "tireless defender of the novel" in 報告（する）／憶測ing h is death.
"Undoubtedly the most European of writers, he impersonated the subtle contrasts of our world," Paris 市長 Anne Hidalgo said.
After the 1989 Velvet 革命 that 平和的に overthrew Czechoslovakia's 共産主義者 政権 and 勧めるd in プロの／賛成の-Western 僕主主義, Kundera only rarely made public visits home but would 静かに visit friends and family.
He 回復するd Czech 市民権 in 2019.
(報告（する）／憶測ing by Jan Lopatka and Robert Muller in Prague and Elizabeth Pineau and Tassilo Hummel in Paris; 令状ing by Michael Kahn and Jason Hovet; Editing by Toby Chopra, Kevin Liffey, 示す Heinrich and Nick Macfie)
