Ignorant people are always unkind, because one of the essences of ignorance is indifference.

One of the Guardians of the Devil - Milan and Kundera

Milan and Kundera (1929) Czech-French writer, famous works include "The Unbearable Lightness of Life", "Laughing and Forgetting Books", etc. Born in Brno, Czechoslovakia. He moved to France in 1975 and became French citizen in 1981.

As a young man, he worked as a jazz musician, a worker, and as a professor at the Prague Academy of Film Arts, he advocated for the New Czech Film Movement.

Like many other Czech artists and writers (such as Wenceslas and Havel), Kundera participated in the reform movement of the Prague Spring of 1968.

The movement began in an optimistic spirit of reform, but was eventually crushed by the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact member states. In his first work, The Joke, Kundera satirized the totalitarian rule of communism.

Because of Kundera's criticism of the Soviet invasion, he was blacklisted shortly after Prague was occupied by Soviet troops. All of his works were also banned.

In 1975, Kundera went into exile in France. In 1979 he completed "The Book of Laughter and Forgetfulness" in France, which tells the life of ordinary Czechs under Soviet occupation. The novel contains several unrelated stories at the same time, interspersed with many of the writer's own reflections, setting the tone for Kundera's work in exile.

In 1984, Kundera published The Unbearable Lightness of Life, the most influential work of his life. The novel chronicles the difficulties of the Czechs in adjusting to life and relationships during the Prague Spring reform movement and during the Soviet occupation. (In 1988, American directors Philip and Kaufman adapted it into a movie.) )

1990 year. Kundera publishes Immortality, his last work written in Czech. The novel has a strong international element, with a lot less political than his earlier works, but with a lot of philosophical reflections, and this book sets the tone for his later works.

Kundera has always insisted that he was just an ordinary novelist, not a political writer or an exiled writer. Beginning with The Book of Laughter, the political element of Kundera's novels has been decreasing until it disappears. Kundera always thought about politics in a broad philosophical context.

Kundera has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature six times, but has not won so far.

He is the author of novels: "Jokes" (1967), "Funny Love" (short story collection, 1968), "Living Elsewhere" (1969)

Farewell Waltz (1976), Laughing and Forgetting (1978), The Unbearable Lightness of Life (1984), Immortality (1990), Slow (1995), Identity (1998), Ignorance (2000)

Literary Criticism: The Art of the Novel (1986), The Betrayed Will (1992), The Veil (2005), Encounter (2009)

Drama: Jacques and his master (1981)

In 1981, the President of France granted him French citizenship. He has won international literary awards such as the National Literary Award in the United States and the Jerusalem Literary Award in Israel. He is known as one of the most imaginative and influential writers of our time.

He has won the highest honor in the French literary world and the Italian Award for Best Foreign Literature.

The novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Life" is set in Prague. There are quite a few philosophical concepts involved. Milan and Kundera thus established him as the world's greatest living writer. (New York Times)

The Chinese translation of the book was first translated by Han Shaogong and Han Gang in 1985 and published by Writers Publishing House in 1987.

In 2003, Shanghai Translation Publishing House published a re-translation by Professor Xu Jun of Nanjing University, and the title of the book was changed to The Unbearable Lightness of Life. In 2004, Crown Press republished the Chinese Traditional Chinese translation based on the latest French translation, translated by Wei Chixiu.

"If every second of our lives is repeated countless times. We will be crucified like Jesus. Crucified to eternity. The prospect is terrifying. In the realm of eternal return, the unbearable burden of responsibility weighs heavily on our every action. This is why Nietzsche said that the concept of eternal return is the heaviest burden. ”

"If the return of eternal calamity is the heaviest burden, then our life can compete with it in all its glorious ease, but is it really miserable if it is heavy, and really glorious when it is easy?"

"The heaviest burden weighed us down and sank, pinning us to the ground. But in the love psalms of every age, women always desire to be pressed under the body of men. Perhaps the heaviest burden is also a symbol of the fullest life, and the heavier the burden, the closer our life will be to the earth, the closer it will be to the real and real. ”

In the book, Kundera plays his quartet: Thomas, Teresa, Sabina and Franz. Through the perspective of each character, an existential theme is told, whether it is heavy or light, how much does politics distort human life, and Kundera uses Sabiner's mouth to say, "I am not anti-communist, I am against kitsch!". In this way, he expressed his own orientation.

Composed of seven narrative chapters, The Book of Laughter and Forgetfulness is a novel about laughter, about forgetting, about Prague and about angels. The book describes the life of the Czech people under the iron heel of the Soviet Union, political antagonism, wall-riding factions and other disputes. There are certain elements of magical realism in the book.

The New York Times: "Laughing and Forgetting is essentially a novel, but it's a fairy tale, a literary criticism, a booklet with a political flavor, a music theory, and a biographical book. It can be transformed into any book it wants to be, and overall, it's a genius at all. 』

Time Magazine: 'Kundera's condemnation of modern life is macro, but his concern for those who create and experience pain is the deepest. 』

John, Updike: "This book may quite call itself a brilliant and novel book, inviting the reader directly to the heart of the book in the cleanest and most witty words. 』

The whole book is a novel in a varied form, with several different chapters one after the other, like several different stages of travel, towards the inner of a certain main theme, towards the inner of a certain idea, towards the inner of a unique situation, and the meaning of travel has been lost in the vast inner world, and I want to argue but have forgotten to speak.

It's a novel about Tamina, and when Tamina walks out of the stage, it's a novel written for Tamina. She is the protagonist of the story, the main audience of the story, and all the other stories are variations based on her story, which are gathered in her life like images in a mirror.

This is a novel about laughter and forgetting, about forgetting and about Prague, about Prague and about angels!

One of the guardians of the Demon Hero, the Demon Warrior - Purple Shikibu

Murasaki Shikibu (year of birth and death unknown) was a Japanese female writer of the Heian period. Born in a noble literati family, his father and brother are both good at Chinese poetry and songs. Her real surname is Fujiwara, and her actual real name is unknown, but it is speculated that it may be Fujiwara Kako or Fujibara. One of the thirty-six song fairies in the Middle Ages and the thirty-six song fairies in the women's room. His waka songs have been included in "One Song of Ogura Hundred People".

When he was young, he studied Sinology and was proficient in music and Buddhist scriptures. In 1004, Murasaki Shikibu was widowed and was called to serve Emperor Ichijo in the palace, and in the autumn of the same year, he began to write "The Tale of Genji".

Murasaki Shikibu is not her real name, and the low social status of women in ancient Japan has not been handed down by a woman writer. (To be continued......)