Discovering Milan Kundera (1929-2023) in 1985 and giving “The Joke” to my father for Christmas

In summer 1985, I first read the novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (1984, translated by Michael Henry Heim), by Milan Kundera (1929-2023), and I immediately preceded to read his earlier works. My father spent the 1985-1986 academic year in Toronto, and as I prepared to visit him for Christmas, I wanted to buy him a copy of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", but the only one the bookstore had was "The Joke" (1967, also in Heim's translation). Luckily, he said the book struck him more than any book since he had first read Albert Camus's "The Stranger" in the mid-1950s. He went on to read and enjoy all of Kundera. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 16 July 2023)