Encounter: Essays

Milan Kundera’s brilliant collection of essays is a passionate defense of art in an era that, he argues, no longer values art or beauty. With the same dazzling mix of emotion and ideas that characterizes his bestselling novels, the internationally acclaimed author revisits the artists whose works help us better understand what it means to be human. Elegant, startlingly original, and provocative, Encounter combines many of the author’s signature themes with personal reflections and stories.

In this masterwork of cultural criticism, Kundera explores:

• The Art of the Novel: Profound meditations on the works of luminaries like Rabelais, Dostoyevsky, and Malaparte, exploring what this essential art form reveals about the human condition.
• Modern Art and Music: A painter’s brutal gesture in the works of Francis Bacon, the shocking modernity of Janáček, and the tragedy of forgetting Schoenberg.
• European Literature: Sharp, illuminating encounters with the worlds of Anatole France, Céline, and the poetry of the Antilles.
• Exile and Memory: The author’s deeply personal lens on the nature of exile, the battlefield of memory, and the unbreakable bonds of friendship across political divides.