Milan Kundera wins prize from country that banned his books

Milan Kundera has been awarded the Czech State Prize for Literature for his famous work The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which was only published in his home country last year, 22 years after it first appeared in bookstores in other countries.

His books were banned by the communists in Czechoslovakia during the 1970s and 80s, and even now many of his books are not available in the Czech language as Kundera insists on translating his works from French himself.

Readers swamped Czechoslovakian bookstores when the book was released, although the author attracts some criticism from within his home country for writing his books in French and not releasing them in Czech.

Kundera, 78, has been living in France since 1975 and became a French citizen in 1981. He wrote The Unbearable Lightness of Being in French in 1984. Kundera left Czechoslovakia after being expelled from the Czech communist party. Just prior to being expelled he was involved in reformist activities with other creatives, called 'Prague Spring', which was crushed by Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.