Milan Kundera's Fiction

"Karen von Kunes has been following Kundera's work for years, and her judgment and analyses are always very precise in capturing the essence of the author's endeavor. Hers is the evolving attempt, very much in sync with Kundera's own changing themes and motifs. Kundera is responding to a new situation in the changing world and the sometimes uncomfortable changes in his fiction might be a challenge to some readers. Von Kunes makes sense of this challenging author in persuasive and clear interpretation of some of his most difficult works.” -- Peter Petro, The University of British Columbia
"Milan Kundera's Fiction is a topical, all-encompassing and very stimulating analysis of Milan Kundera’s literary oeuvre. The author starts out by examining an incident from March 1950 when a CIA agent was arrested in Prague and Kundera may have been entangled in this event. A major role was played by coincidences and by  a mysterious suitcase - hence von Kunes argues that the motif of suitcase is the fatal 'instrument' which always leads to catastrophic developments in Kundera's work.” -- Jan Čulík, University of Glasgow
“Karen von Kunes explores the ever-changing identity of Milan Kundera from his student days in Czechoslovakia to his authorial career in France, uncovering interwoven life struggles in the fiction of an inquisitive, analytical, and erudite mind. The case of a real-life valise that caught young Kundera’s attention on March 14, 1950 and escalated into a political and human drama of betrayal and suffering reappears throughout his fiction. Digression, confusion, paradox, political plight, irrational behavior, secret police, and prison contribute to this comprehensive inquiry into Kundera’s profoundly human stories of laughter and forgetting.” -- Kenneth David Jackson, Yale University
“Karen von Kunes offers a uniquely creative analysis of Milan Kundera's life and art via the image of a suitcase. Once opened, it offers a reading and understanding of fictional characters, the author himself, and the political realities of the twentieth century. Milan Kundera's Fiction: A Critical Approach to Existential Betrayals reads like a detective story, one that is suspenseful and  thought provoking well beyond its pages.” -- Hana Pichova, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill