Milan Kundera 'joyfully' accepts Czech Republic's Franz Kafka prize
Milan Kundera, whose Czech citizenship was restored last year after he had spent more than 40 years in exile, has won one of the Czech Republic’s most prestigious literary awards, the Franz Kafka prize. The $10,000 (£7,800) award, organised by the Franz Kafka Society and the city of Prague, is chosen by an international jury. Franz Kafka Society chairman Vladimír Železný said Kundera won for his “extraordinary contribution to Czech culture”, and for an “unmissable response” in European and world culture. According to Železný, when the 91-year-old Kundera was reached by phone, the author said he “joyfully” accepted the prize, particularly because of his admiration of Kafka.
Kundera was expelled for “anti-communist
activities” from the Czechoslovakian party in 1950. He became a hate
figure for the authorities and eventually fled to France in 1975. His Czech
citizenship was revoked in 1979 following the publication of his novel The Book
of Laughter and Forgetting, which saw him describe then-Czechoslovak president
Gustáv Husák as “the president of forgetting”, and he became a French citizen
in 1981. Some of his best-known works, including The Unbearable Lightness of
Being, were banned in his homeland until the late 80's, while the 1988 novel
Immortality was his last novel written in Czech. He has written in French ever
since…
The Tremendous World I Have Inside My Head: Franz Kafka: A Biographical Essay
Books reviewed - Lost in
Transformation: biographies of Franz Kafka
'Before the Law' - a parable by
Franz Kafka
Ilya Erenburg: The Thaw (Novyi mir
Spring 1954)
A Hunger Artist - by Franz Kafka
(1922)
