The Unbearable Lightness of Being

In this novel, a story of irreconcilable loves and infidelities, Milan Kundera addresses himself to the nature of 20th Century 'Being.' In a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and by fortuitous events, a world in which everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. We feel, says the novelist, 'the unbearable lightness of being,' not only as the consequence of our private acts but also in the public sphere, and the two inevitably intertwine.