A novel of irreconcilable loves and infidelities, which embraces all aspects of human existence, and addresses the nature of twentieth-century 'Being'. From the author of TESTAMENTS BETRAYED.

◎共計有七篇短篇故事。七篇故事各自獨立，卻又巧妙相連；由極單純的人物、故事背景組成，串聯出七個荒謬、可笑、自作自受的以『愛』為主軸的人生景色。
『我知道你一向是個直爽的人，你自己對這一點很驕傲。可是，請你想想這個問題：『為什麼』要說實話？是什麼強迫我們這麼做？為什麼必須把誠實看做是一種美德？假設你遇到一個瘋子，他說他自己是魚，我們每一個人也都是魚。你會和他爭論嗎？你會在他面前脫掉衣服，好讓他看看你沒有魚鱗嗎？你會當他的面對他說你心裡真正想的嗎？你說嘛！』
他的哥哥沈默以對，艾德華繼續說：『要是你對他說實話，把你對他真正的想法告訴，他這意思就是說，你同意和一個瘋子進行嚴肅的對話，你同意你自己也是個瘋子。我們所處的這個世界正是這個樣子。如果你執意要當一個人的面說實話，這就表示你嚴肅的看待他。嚴肅的看待一件根本不嚴肅的事，意味著自己也要喪失自己的嚴肅我啊，我為了不要嚴肅看待瘋子，不要自己也變成瘋子，就『必須』說謊。』

In
, Milan Kundera tells the story of a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing and one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover. This magnificent novel juxtaposes geographically distant places, brilliant and playful reflections, and a variety of styles, to take its place as perhaps the major achievement of one of the world’s truly great writers.

More than 700,000 copies sold. Basis for the world-acclaimed film. "A meditation on life, on the erotic, on the nature of men and women and love . . . full of telling details, truths large and small." People

《不能承受的生命之轻》是米兰·昆德拉的代表作。小说描写了托马斯与特丽莎、萨丽娜之间的感情生活。但是，它绝不是一个男人和两个女人的三角性爱故事，它 是一部哲理小说，小说从“永恒轮回”的讨论开始，把我们带入了对一系列问题的思考中，比如，轻与重，比如，灵与肉，它带领着我们思考——什么才是人类不能 承受的生命之轻？它更是一部意象繁复的书，其中装载了多种涵义：被政治化了的社会内涵的揭示、人性考察、个人命运在特定历史与政治语境下的呈现，以及对两 性关系本质上的探索等。昆德拉极其聪明地将这些元素糅合在一起，写成一部非同凡响的小说——其中既有隐喻式的哲学思考，也有人的悲欢离合的生命历程的展 现。 A young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing; one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover -- these are the two couples whose story is told in this masterful novel. 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. Hence, we feel "the unbearable lightness of being" not only as the consequence of our pristine actions but also in the public sphere, and the two inevitably intertwine.
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不能承受的生命之轻

故事的男主角尚馬克做了一個夢：他擔心著香黛兒並到處尋找她的身影，後來終於在某條街道看見她，等到追上並叫住她時，卻發現回頭的是位長相陌生的女子，被嚇到的尚馬克，很確定她就是香黛兒，他只能緊緊的將她在懷裡，希望藉著叫喚她的名字，喚回原本的容貌……

這本書奠定了米蘭‧昆德拉作為
世界上最偉大的在世作家的地位！
文壇大師昆德拉最膾炙人口的代表作
二十世紀最動人的小說
此生必讀的文學經典
★本書曾在華文世界掀起一股昆德拉熱潮，暢銷逾百萬冊！
★全新版書封以昆德拉早期親手繪製的書中小狗「卡列寧」珍貴插畫做設計，並採用200g維納斯麗綺紙，書名燙藍，極具珍藏價值！
★改編拍成電影「布拉格的春天」，由影帝丹尼爾戴路易斯、影后茱麗葉畢諾許主演！
如果生命的每一秒鐘都得重複無數次，我們就會像耶穌基督釘在十字架上那樣，被釘在永恆之上。在永劫回歸的世界裡，每一個動作都負荷著讓人不能承受的重責大任，但在這片背景布幕上，我們的生命依然可以在它輝煌燦爛的輕盈之中展現出來。
可「重」真是殘酷？而「輕」真是美麗？
最沉重的負擔壓垮我們，讓我們屈服，把我們壓倒在地。可是在世世代代的愛情詩篇裡，女人渴望的卻是承受男性肉體的重擔。於是，最沉重的負擔同時也是最激越的生命實現的形象。負擔越沉重，我們的生命就越貼近地面，生命就越寫實也越真實。
相反的，完全沒有負擔會讓人的存在變得比空氣還輕，會讓人的存在飛起，遠離地面，遠離人世的存在，變得只是似真非真，一切動作都變得自由自在，卻又無足輕重。
那麼，我們該選哪一個呢？重，還是輕？
《生命中不能承受之輕》以「布拉格之春」為背景，蘇聯軍隊入侵捷克後，知識分子逃往海外。昆德拉透過一男兩女交織的愛情故事，帶出了對政治、文化、人類生命的省思與嘲諷。
托馬斯和特麗莎的愛情是「重」，特麗莎不惜用盡全身全靈去愛托馬斯，她不願愛情僅限一夜，而渴望日日夜夜，但這樣的重卻反而成為托馬斯的負擔。
托馬斯和薩賓娜的關係則是「輕」，他們只願片刻歡愉，不願永世承諾。但當薩賓娜選擇離開愛情、離開祖國，一身輕盈卻也是一片空無，成為不能承受的生命之輕。
由此看來，誰還能說「重」即是殘酷，而「輕」則是美麗？我們又該如何抉擇？昆德拉藉由故事、夢境、散文、詩歌、歷史，以音樂般的旋律變化呈現出一齣糅合了甜美、憂傷與殘酷的生命鬧劇，也讓「輕」與「重」的辯證成為昆德拉小說中永恆的命題。
各界好評
成功地展現出勝於嘲諷的智慧與超越絕望的希望！——時代雜誌
令人驚異的是，一本與其時代背景如此緊密連結的作品，在二十年後卻依然沒有過時。僅管自從1984年以來，整個世界，特別是所謂的東歐地區，歷經了重大的改變，但是昆德拉的小說在今日讀來，卻依然和它首次出版時一樣深入人心！——衛報
一部眼界開闊又複雜細緻的作品，交織著政治與哲思、肉慾和靈性、趣味和深度……當今寫作男女之間多樣關係的作者中，沒有人比得上昆德拉的智慧觀察。——華爾街日報
《生命中不能承受之輕》是一部愛情故事，也是一本概念小說……機智、誘人、嚴肅……充滿情感，對於性愛與政治之間巧妙的交互作用有極為嫺熟的描述。——華盛頓郵報
托馬斯與特麗莎是這本小說的兩極。我們應該選擇背負特麗莎過去肩上的重擔，她即使在「布拉格之春」發生後離開，也永遠無法捨棄捷克斯洛伐克，一如無法離開讓她飽嚐嫉妒的丈夫托馬斯，而嫉妒，或許正是讓她永遠無法滿足的原因?薩賓娜可以理解風流醫生探索女性，宛如用手術刀仔細研究物品，而我們又否該選擇托馬斯與薩賓娜體現的生命之輕？我們並不知道何種是最能讓人承受的方式，而這本小說提供了不同角色的面貌，連狗兒卡列寧都是其中一章的主題。這場無常的芭蕾混合了虛幻，以辯證形式的質問，在深思熟慮與帶有詩意的混亂中做出結論，輕與重，兩者同樣令人難以承受，也無法出自於真實的決定。——【書評家】薩娜‧唐-李歐珀‧沃蝶斯

Starred Review. It's not often that a work comes along that so perfectly distills an approach to art that it realigns the way an art form is understood. Susan Sontag's revolutionary work On Photography was one such piece. Kundera's new book-length essay should be another. The renowned Franco-Czech author (The Book of Laughter and Forgetting) investigates the history of the novel, beginning with the moment in which Cervantes denied Don Quixote's desire for elevation to knight-errant and instead "cast a legendary figure down: into the world of prose." In the prosaic world, according to Kundera, the absence of pathos, the insistence on the comedic and the interrelation of all novels represent the locus of meaning and emotional impact. Kundera argues against the tendency to classify and study literature through the lens of nationality. Instead, he proposes a world literature that would take into account the way novelists learn from one another, Sterne from Rabelais, Fielding from Cervantes, Joyce from Flaubert and, though he never explicitly states it, Kundera from them all. This is a self-consciously personal vision of "the poetics of the novel," one that displays Kundera's own preoccupations, from his Central European dislike of sentimental kitsch to his exhortation that, to be counted in the history of the novel, all novelists must follow Cervantes, must "[tear] the curtain of preinterpretation" into which we are all born. Only then can the novel accomplish its purpose: to show its readers their own lives. (Feb.)

Slavný román Milana Kundery vychází poprvé v České republice; s obvyklou Poznámkou autora a s doslovem Květoslava Chvatíka. Poprvé vyšel ve francouzském překladu v roce 1984 v Paříži u Gallimarda, v roce 1985 česky v Kanadě v nakladatelství Sixty-Eight Publishers. Vyprávění o lásce, o Tereze a Tomášovi, o Sabině a Franzovi, o lehkosti a tíze bytí...
„Po čtyřech letech strávených v Ženevě ubytovala se Sabina v Paříži a nemohla se vzpamatovat z melancholie. Kdyby se jí někdo ze ptal, co se jí stalo, nenašla by pro to slov. Životní drama se dá vždycky vyjádřit metaforou tíže. Říkáme, že na člověka dopadlo nějaké břemeno. Člověk to břemeno unese nebo neunese, padá pod ním, zápasí s ním, prohrává nebo vítězí. Ale co se vlastně stalo Sabině? Nic. Opustila jednoho muže, protože ho chtěla opustit. Pronásledoval ji pak? Mstil se jí? Ne. Její drama nebylo dramatem tíhy, ale lehkosti. Na Sabinu dopadlo nikoli břemeno, ale nesnesitelná lehkost bytí.“

在线阅读本书
All too often, this brilliant novel of thwarted love and revenge miscarried has been read for its political implications. Now, a quarter century after The Joke was first published and several years after the collapse of the Soviet-imposed Czechoslovak regime, it becomes easier to put such implications into perspective in favor of valuing the book (and all Kundera 's work) as what it truly is: great, stirring literature that sheds new light on the eternal themes of human existence. The present edition provides English-language readers an important further means toward revaluation of The Joke . For reasons he describes in his Author's Note, Milan Kundera devoted much time to creating (with the assistance of his American publisher-editor) a completely revised translation that reflects his original as closely as any translation possibly can: reflects it in its fidelity not only to the words and syntax but also to the characteristic dictions and tonalities of the novel's narrators. The result is nothing less than the restoration of a classic.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being was first published in 1984 and was at once hailed by the critics as a contemporary classic.
'There arevovels which are tragic, or entertaining, and this one is both. There are very few that give a fresh perspective on existence, and force the reader to reassess his own life and attitudes. Kundera is vonsistently interesting.'
Sunday Times

Der Prager Chirurg Tomas, der die Frauen begehrt und zugleich fürchtet, ein Erotomane, der seine Scheidung wie eine Hochzeit feierte und fortan der Liebe aus dem Weg ging, bricht für die Kellnerin Teresa mit einigen seiner Grundsätze. Seine erotischen Freundschaften, wie jene mit der Malerin Sabina, führt er aber weiter. Teresa verlässt ihn in Zürich, wo sich die beiden, inzwischen verheiratet, nach dem russischen Einmarsch in Prag, niedergelassen haben. Sie kehrt in ihr Heimatland zurück, er folgt ihr, verliert seine Stellung und arbeitet als Fensterputzer, später als Lastwagenfahrer in einem Dorf fern von Prag. Das Glück endet in der Katastrophe - Tomas und Teresa sterben bei einem Verkehrsunfall nach einem Tanzabend. Der Roman >Die unerträgliche Leichtigkeit des Seins

Qu'est-il resté des agonisants du Cambodge ? Une grande photo de la star américaine tenant dans ses bras un enfant jaune. Qu'est-il resté de Tomas ? Une inscription : il voulait le Royaume de Dieu sur la terre. Qu'est-il resté de Beethoven ? Un homme morose à l'invraisemblable crinière, qui prononce d'une voix sombre : Es muss sein ! " Qu'est-il resté de Franz ? Une inscription : Après un long égarement, le retour. Et ainsi de suite, et ainsi de suite. Avant d'être oubliés, nous serons changés en kitsch. Le kitsch, c'est la station de correspondance entre l'être et l'oubli.

A short collection of brilliant early essays that offers a fascinating context for the Milan Kundera's subsequent career and holds a mirror to much recent European history. It is also remarkably prescient with regard to Russia's current aggression in Ukraine and its threat to the rest of Europe.
Milan Kundera's early nonfiction work feels especially resonant in our own time. In these pieces, Kundera pleads the case of the "small nations" of Europe who, by culture, are Western with deep roots in Europe, despite Russia imposing its own Communist political regimes in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Ukraine, and elsewhere. Kundera warns that the real tragedy here is not Russia but Europe, whose own identity and culture are directly challenged and threatened in a way that could lead to their destruction. He is sounding the alarm, which chimes loud and clear in our own twenty-first century.
The 1983 essay translated by Edmund White ("The Tragedy of Central Europe"), and the 1967 lecture delivered to the Czech Writers' Union in the middle of the Prague Spring by the young Milan Kundera ("Literature and the Small Nations"), translated for the first time by Linda Asher, are both written in a voice that is at once personal, vehement, and anguished. Here, Kundera appears already as one of our great European writers and truly our contemporary. Each piece is prefaced by a short presentation by French historian Pierre Nora and Czech-born French political scientist Jacques Rupnik.

The people of Central Europe cannot be separated from European history; they cannot exist outside it; but they represent the wrong side of this history; they are its victims and outsiders.
In a moment of historic peril and uncertainty in mainland Europe, Milan Kundera makes the case for Central Europe as the nucleus of European values and as a lightning rod for its potential dangers.
For the countries that make up this region where democracy is under continued threat from Russian oppression, language and culture play an active role in affirming national identity. And each of these countries - Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia - has been historically overlooked by the major powers of Western Europe. But Kundera cautions that this blindness puts Europe's cultural and political independence at risk, a warning that feels increasingly relevant to our current moment, and our future.

"A short collection of brilliant early essays that offers a fascinating context for the Milan Kundera's subsequent career and holds a mirror to much recent European history. It is also remarkably prescient with regard to Russia's current aggression in Ukraine and its threat to the rest of Europe"--Publisher's description.