Encounter

Encounter is the latest addition to the acclaimed body of literary criticism from beloved author Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting). Novelist Russell Banks writes, “Not since Henry James, perhaps, has a fiction writer examined the process of writing with such insight, authority, and range of reference and allusion.” In Encounter, Kundera brilliantly reflects on some of his signature themes and old loves (Rabelais, Fellini, Janacek, Malaparte), on literature, on morality, and on the transformation of civilization as we know it. |

A brilliant new contribution to Kundera's ongoing reflections on art and artists, written with unparalleled insight, authority, and range of reference and allusion

Milan Kundera's new 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 idea that characterizes his novels, Kundera revisits the artists who remain important to him and whose works help us better understand the world we live in and what it means to be human. An astute reader of fiction, Kundera brings his extraordinary critical gifts to bear on the paintings of Francis Bacon, the music of Leos Janacek, and the films of Federico Fellini, as well as the novels of Philip Roth, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Gabriel García Márquez, among others. He also takes up the challenge of restoring to its rightful place the work of Anatole France and Curzio Malaparte, major writers who have fallen into obscurity.

Milan Kundera's signature themes of memory and forgetting, the experience of exile, and the championing of modernist art are here, along with more personal reflections and stories. Encounter is a work of great humanism. Art is what we possess in the face of evil and the darker side of human nature. Elegant, startlingly original, and provocative, Encounter follows in the footsteps of Kundera's earlier essay collections, The Art of the Novel, Testaments Betrayed, and The Curtain.

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“Cultivated, worldly, charming and spirited…Kundera’s values are sane and humane; his impulses generous; his taste, overall, unimpeachable.” - Phillip Lopate, San Francisco Chronicle

“Deeply personal and warmly inviting…Encounter serves as a call to arms for a culture on the verge of losing its artistic credibility.” - Time Out New York

“A remarkable collection that showcases the author’s diverse interests and sparkling talent…Kundera looks at the way exile and estrangement impact upon art and creation.” - New York Journal of Books

“I can’t imagine reading this book without being challenged and instructed, amused, amazed and aroused, and ultimately delighted.” - John Simon, New York Times Book Review

“Compelling essays.” - Boston Sunday Globe

“A commanding, compelling collection. . . . Kundera’s essays express enduring aesthetic loyalties and provide unexpected aesthetic sparks that remind readers of a fuller range of authentic thought and feeling.” - Michael S. Roth, Los Angeles Times