HISTORY AND LITERATURE: CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT TOTALITARISM IN MILAN KUNDERA'S WORK

Abstract

Milan Kundera is a czech writer who became famous for writing novels that mix political inquiries and philosophical reflections on the human condition. Because of his political activism, and his artistic criticism of elements that permeated the political and social reality of Czechoslovakia, Kundera was censored by the soviet government, which had great influence in his country. His books were confiscated and banned, and in 1975 he went into exile in France. In 1978, Kundera lost his czech citizenship, and two years later he became a french citizen. He currently lives in France. In this article, I propose a study on Milan Kundera's view of the political scenario in Czechoslovakia under the rule of the Soviet Union. I will examine some considerations about totalitarianism that are included in two of his novels: The Unbearable Lightness of Being and The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. In this way, I would like not only to contribute to a better understanding of Kundera's work, but also to reaffirm the possibility of dialogue between history and literature.