Milan Kundera Birthday & Fun Facts

Milan Kundera Birthday Highlights

Birth Name

Milan Kundera

Place Of Birth

Brno, Czech Republic

Age

94 years old

Birth Date

April 1 1929

Milan Kundera Facts

Child Star?

no

Occupation

Novelist, Author, Poet, Playwright, Essayist

Education & Qualifications

Charles University

Net Worth

$5,000,000

Current Partner

Věra Hrabánková

Parents

Ludvik Kundera, Milada Kundernova-Janosikova

Milan Kundera is a Czech writer.

The best-known work of Milan Kundera is 'The Unbearable Lightness Of Being'. Kundera was a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature, as thought by others.

Born on April 1, 1929, Milan Kundera went into exile in 1975 in France and became a French citizen in 1981, and later received his Czech citizenship in 2019. He has studied at Charles University as well as Film Faculty, Prague. The World War II influences can be seen in his work. He has won many awards like the Austrian State Prize, Czech State Literature Prize, and the International Herder Prize.

What is Milan Kundera's net worth?

Milan Kundera has earned most of his net worth from his writing career. Kundera earns royalty from the books and poems he has written. Kundera has earned a net worth of about $5 million as of 2022.

How much does Milan Kundera earn per year?

Milan Kundera earned his income from the royalties of his published books. This income was not salary-based but entirely project-based. Hence it is challenging to calculate his annual payment.

How tall is Milan Kundera?

Milan Kundera was nearly 6 ft 1 in (185 cm) tall.

How old is Milan Kundera?

Born on April 1, 1929, in Brno, Czechoslovakia (now known as the Czech Republic), Milan Kundera celebrated his 93rd birthday in 2022.

Milan Kundera was born to his parents on April 1, 1929 in Kralovo Pole which is a quarter of Brno in Czechoslovakia to Ludvik Kundera and Milada Kundernova-Janosikova. His father was a musicologist and a pianist from Czechoslovakia and was head of Janacek Music Academy between 1948-1961 in Brno, Czechoslovakia itself.

Milan Kundera had musicological influences from his father and his surroundings, later discovered in his work. A cousin of Kundera was a Czech writer and a translator named after the former's father, Ludvik Kundera. They had little or no experience of pre-democratic Czechoslovakia.

Before completing his secondary studies in 1948 from Gynazium Trida Kapitana Jarose, Kundera joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in Brno while he was still a teen. Later, he went to Prague to study at Charles University, where he wanted to get his expertise in literature and aesthetics. However, Kundera lasted two terms on the course and transferred himself to the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague in the Film Faculty. Milan Kundera started attending lectures about film direction and script writing at Film Faculty and Performing Arts Institute in Prague.

In 1950, his studies in the Film Faculty at the Academy of Performing Arts were interrupted when Kundera was expelled from Communist Party for anti-party activities with Jan Trefulka. Jan Trefulka was also a writer. Milan Kundera later graduated in 1952 from Film Faculty. He was again expelled from Communist Party after his graduation.

Who is Milan Kundera's partner?

Milan Kundera is married to Věra Hrabánková. Not much information is available about his personal life, kids, and more.

Best Known For…

Many of Milan Kundera's poetry and collections were published in the '50s while teaching in Prague. This included his 1955 published 'The Last May', which was a homage to Julius Fucik, leader of the Communist Party. Later in 1957, Kundera published 'Monology'. This was a volume of love poems.

In 1962, Milan Kundera published several volumes and a highly successful play named 'The Owners Of The Keys'. The volumes mentioned earlier were nothing but a collection of short stories. These led to the release of his first novel, which is still considered one of the most outstanding works in modern art named 'The Joke'. This novel was released at the peak of his writing career and presented as a comic and ironic view of the private lives of Czechs. This was translated into several languages and was also internationally acclaimed.

In 1969, Milan Kundera's second novel 'Life Is Elsewhere' was published. This was about a romantic hero who was hapless and who was okay with the Communist invasion of 1948 and which was forbidden by Czech publication.

Milan Kundera was committed to communism of Czech, but other writers like Pavel Kohout were peripherally involved in the 1968 Prague Spring. However, Kundera followed his reformist dreams and finally moved to France in 1975. Earlier, he was not allowed to emigrate. But Věra Hrabánková and Milan Kundera were allowed to emigrate from Czechoslovakia in 1975, and he went to France to teach at the University of Rennes. The Czech government stripped Kundera of his citizenship in 1979. Since 1981, Milan Kundera and his family (mainly his wife) have been French citizens.

Some of his popular books are 'Farewell Waltz' in 1976, 'The Book Of Laughter And Forgetting' in 1979, and 'The Unbearable Lightness Of Being' in 1984. The significant thing about these books was that they were not only for the readers of France but everywhere else across the globe, keeping his homeland away from this amazing European literature.

In the '90s, Milan Kundera was a French writer who added many gems to European literature, although in the French style. In 1994, his novel 'Slowness' was followed by 'Identity' (1997) and 'Ignorance' (2000). 'Ignorance' was also later published in the Spanish language. Later in 2013, 'The Festival Of Insignificance' was about a group of Parisian friends.

What awards has Milan Kundera won?

Milan Kundera got the Jerusalem Prize in 1985 for his collection of essays in 'The Art Of The Novel'.

In 1987, Milan Kundera won The Austrian State Prize for his European literature work.

Kundera got the International Herder Prize in 2000.

Milan Kundera also received a Czech State Literature Prize in 2007. And in 2009, Kundera was awarded Prix Mondial Cino Del Duca.

His hometown eventually came back to him and how, Kundera was awarded honorary citizen in 2010 of Brno, his hometown.

In 1983, an asteroid was discovered by the Klet Observatory, later named in his honor and by his name as 7390 Kundera.

Milan Kundera received Ovid Prize in 2011. And he won a Czech literary award in 2020, named the Franz Kafka Prize.

• The World War II experiences and German occupation were behind the idealogy and influences of Milan Kundera since he had no knowledge of pre-war democratic Czechoslovakia.
• Kundera later explained the incident of getting expelled from Prague in his 1962 novel 'Happiness Rained On Them'. The theme of his 1967 novel 'The Joke' was also based on his Prague expulsion.
• Milan Kundera remained a working member of the Communist Party until 1970.
• Milan Kundera's books were banned by the communist regime in Czechoslovakia before the 1989 Velvet Revolution.
• After the fall of Communism, Milan Kundera made France his home. Since 1995, he has switched to writing in French and seldom visits the Czech Republic.

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