The Joke

The debut by author of modern classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being, of which Salman Rushdie said: 'It is impossible to do justice here to the subtleties, comedy and wisdom of this very beautiful novel.'

'A funny, sad, gripping, wise, marvellous book.' Sunday Times



Ludvik returns to his hometown a bitter man with a single aim: to do unto others what has been done to him. Expelled from the Communist Party as a student for a youthful joke, he has spent years exiled to a bleak labour camp. awaiting his chance for revenge on those who betrayed him - and one-time friends, lovers and comrades soon become entwined in his machinations as he devises the perfect plan . . .



Kundera's iconoclastic debut novel was a sensation during the Prague Spring: later banned, it launched his worldwide literary reputation, and its passionate exploration of humour, censorship and individualism is even more powerful over half a century later.



The French-Czech novelist Milan Kundera was born in the Czech Republic and has lived in France since 1975. He died in Paris in 2023.