Milan Kundera

Kundera is considered one of Europe's outstanding contemporary writers. He is frequently labeled an Eastern European "dissident" writer despite his insistence that his works are not inherently political or propagandistic. Rather than serving as ideological puppets, Kundera's characters are usually vulnerable individuals whose views and lifestyles are challenged through events and dilemmas in their personal lives and in society. His single collection of translated stories, Laughable Loves, contains several recurring themes: the ambiguousness and mutability of individual identity; the consequences of the games that individuals play in the name of love and lust; the prevalence of the social masks that people wear to disguise their true motives and to gain approval from others; and the ironic backfiring of human plans. -- Milan Kundera Criticism