This breathtaking, reverberating survey of human nature finds Kundera still attempting to work out the meaning of life without losing his acute sense of humour. It is one of those great unclassifiable masterpieces that appear once every twenty years or so.

A novel, divided into seven parts and exploring immortality. This is the author's seventh novel. His previous works include The Joke, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and The Unbearable Lightness of Being. He has written one play, Jacques and his Master.