Free Republic

Milan Kundera, whose dissident writings in communist Czechoslovakia transformed him into an exiled satirist of totalitarianism, has died in ParisMilan Kundera, the renowned but reclusive author whose dissident writings transformed him into an exiled satirist of totalitarianism and explorer of identity and the human condition, has died in Paris. He was 94. Kundera died Tuesday afternoon, his long-standing publishing house Gallimard said in a one-sentence statement on Wednesday. It confirmed that he died in Paris, where he has lived for decades, but provided no further information. The European Parliament held a moment of silence upon news of his passing. Kundera...

Milan Kundera died in Paris this week at the grand old age of ninety-four. He was, as he insisted, a French writer, but better known to the world as a "Czech writer. In recent years, his 1967 novel The Joke was never far from Mark's side, and indeed seems to have been adopted by the Wokestapo as an instruction manual. This essay is from The [Un]documented Mark Steyn: I read The Joke, Milan Kundera's first novel, when I was a schoolboy. Bit above my level, but, even as a teenager, I liked the premise. Ludvik is a young man in...