Milan Kundera was a Czech and French novelist. Kundera went into exile in France in 1975, acquiring citizenship in 1981. His Czechoslovak citizenship was revoked in 1979, but he was granted Czech citizenship in 2019.
Dangerous Liaisons is a 1988 American period romantic drama film directed by Stephen Frears from a screenplay by Christopher Hampton, based on his 1985 play Les liaisons dangereuses, itself adapted from the 1782 French novel of the same name by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. It stars Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer, Uma Thurman, Swoosie Kurtz, Mildred Natwick, Peter Capaldi and Keanu Reeves.
Kitsch is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as naïve imitation, overly eccentric, gratuitous or of banal taste.
Madame Bovary, originally published as Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners, is a novel by French writer Gustave Flaubert, published in 1857. The eponymous character lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life.
Françoise d'Aubigné, known first as Madame Scarron and subsequently as Madame de Maintenon, was a French noblewoman who secretly married King Louis XIV. Although she was never considered queen of France, she was one of the King's closest advisers and the royal children's governess. In 1686, she founded the Maison royale de Saint-Louis, a school for girls from poorer noble families.
Les Liaisons dangereuses is a French epistolary novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, first published in four volumes by Durand Neveu from March 23, 1782.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a 1984 novel by Milan Kundera, about two women, two men, a dog, and their lives in the 1968 Prague Spring period of Czechoslovak history. Although written in 1982, the novel was not published until two years later, in a French translation. The same year, it was translated to English from Czech by Michael Henry Heim and excerpts of it were published in The New Yorker. The original Czech text was published the following year.
The Ground Beneath Her Feet is Salman Rushdie's sixth novel. Published in 1999, it is a variation on the Orpheus/Eurydice myth, with rock music replacing Orpheus's lyre. The myth works as a red thread from which the author sometimes strays, but to which he attaches an endless series of references.
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is a novel by Milan Kundera, published in France in 1979. It is composed of seven separate narratives united by some common themes. The book considers the nature of forgetting as it occurs in history, politics, and life in general. The stories also contain elements found in the genre of magic realism.
Identity is a novel by Franco-Czech writer Milan Kundera, published in 1998. Kundera moved to France in 1975. Identity is set primarily in France and was his second novel to be written in French with his earlier novels all in Czech. The novel revolves around the intimate relationship between Chantal and her marginally younger partner Jean-Marc. The intricacies of their relationship and its influences on their sense of identity brings out Kundera's philosophical musings on identity not as an autonomous entity but something integral shaped by the identities of others and their relations to your own.
Slow may refer to various basic dictionary-related meanings:
The South is a 1990 novel by Irish writer Colm Tóibín.
Jacques the Fatalist and his Master is a novel by Denis Diderot, written during the period 1765–1780. The first French edition was published posthumously in 1796, but it was known earlier in Germany, thanks to Schiller's partial translation, which appeared in 1785 and was retranslated into French in 1793, as well as Mylius's complete German version of 1792.
Anne Mather is the pseudonym used by Mildred Grieveson, a popular British author of over 160 romance novels. She also signed novels as Caroline Fleming and Cardine Fleming.
Brenda Jackson is an American novelist who writes contemporary multicultural romance novels. She was the first African-American author to have a novel published as part of the Silhouette Desire line, and has seen many of her novels reach The New York Times and USAToday bestsellers lists. Jackson reached a milestone in her career in October 2013 when she published her 100th novel, becoming the first African American to achieve this milestone.
Immortality is a novel in seven parts, written by Milan Kundera in 1988 in Czech. It was first published in 1990 in French, and then translated into English by Peter Kussi and published in the UK in 1991. The story springs from a casual gesture of a woman, seemingly to her swimming instructor. Immortality is the last of a trilogy that includes The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
Le Libertin is a French comedy film directed by Gabriel Aghion and released in 2000. It is an adaptation of a 1997 play by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt.
The Autobiography of a Flea is an anonymous erotic novel first published in 1887 in London by Edward Avery. Later research has revealed that the author was a London lawyer of the time named Stanislas de Rhodes.
Diary of a Chambermaid is a 2015 French drama film directed by Benoît Jacquot, and written by Jacquot and Hélène Zimmer. It is an adaptation of Octave Mirbeau's 1900 novel of the same name and stars Léa Seydoux as Célestine, a young and ambitious woman who works as a chambermaid for a wealthy couple in France during the early twentieth century. Mirbeau's original novel was adapted into films multiple times before, notably Jean Renoir's 1946 film and Luis Buñuel's 1964 film.
The Festival of Insignificance is a novel by Milan Kundera. This is his eleventh and final fictional work before his death in 2023. It is about a man named Alain, who has not seen his mother since his childhood; Ramon, an intellectual who has retired; D'Ardelo, a man who has a narcissistic personality; Charles and "Caliban" are two people who operate a catering firm; and Quaquelique is an old man who remains attracted to women. Quaquelique manages to seduce women using his skill at non-stop talking. The novel is set in Paris. The themes include "the erotic potential; the link between mother and child; the procreative role of sex; angels...[,] navel gazing...and insignificance. The novels' characters discuss the philosophical ideas of Hegel, Kant and Schopenhauer. The novel is made up of seven parts. The theme of insignificance was also used in The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
