International Bestseller - Winner of the  Los Angeles Times  Book Prize for Fiction

"Far more than a conventional novel. It is a meditation on life, on the erotic, on the nature of men and women and love . . . full of telling details, truths large and small, to which just about every reader will respond. " --  People

In  The Unbearable Lightness of Being , acclaimed author Milan Kundera tells the story of two couples: a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing, and one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover. In a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and by fortuitous events, a world in which everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence, we feel "the unbearable lightness of being" not only as a consequence of our pristine actions but also in the public sphere, and the two inevitably intertwine.

This magnificent novel is a story of passion and politics, infidelity and ideas, and encompasses the extremes of comedy and tragedy, illuminating all aspects of human existence.