Ariane Chemin, in search of the Czech writer Milan Kundera

Audio 29:00

Journalist Ariane Chemin in studio at RFI (March 2021) © Catherine Fruchon-Toussaint / RFI

By: Catherine Fruchon-Toussaint

32 min

Reporter to Le Monde, Ariane Chemin has published in her journal several series on writers and, with Éditions des Équateurs, a story devoted to Romain Gary and Jean Seberg “Marriage in the soft”.

After having been serialized in the newspaper

Le Monde

, his story dedicated to the Czech writer, born April 1, 1929, and absent from the media scene since 1984, has just appeared under the title "In search of Milan Kundera" , published by Sous-Sol.

Publicity

In search of Milan Kundera © Editions du Sous-Sol

"Milan Kundera is one of the most widely read writers in the world; he is also a voluntary disappearance. By dint of refusing any appearance for thirty-seven years, he has erased himself from reality. The gesture of the hand of Agnes at the edge of the swimming pool, the smile of the dog Karenina, his characters remain engraved in the memories; he has become a ghost writer. He has sealed his own existence and this century of stories that are wrapped around his own .

Since her twenties, Ariane Chemin has dreamed of meeting the author of La Plaisanterie.

Following in her footsteps, she travels from East to West, from Prague to Rennes, from Corsica to Belle-Île-en-Mer, meets his wife Věra, goes back in time with her, meets famous publishers and filmmakers, a mysterious announcer, murdered composers and pianists, old dissidents and repentant spies, hears the poetry of Desnos and that of Apollinaire, always in search of Milan Kundera.

She reads life in the work and the work in the life of a novelist now torn between two countries - somewhere lost in translation. "

(Presentation of the Éditions du Sous-Sol)

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