A Kidnapped West: The Tragedy of Central Europe

Written by Milan Kundera

Narrated by Charles Constant

'The people of Central Europe cannot be separated from European history; they cannot exist outside it; but they represent the wrong side of this history; they are its victims and outsiders.'

In a moment of historic threat and uncertainty in mainland Europe, this collection, makes the case for the 'small countries' of Central Europe as the nucleus of European values and a lightning rod for its potential dangers, where language and culture play an active role in affirming national identity and democracy is under continued threat from the threat of Russian oppression.

However, these countries have been historically overlooked by the major powers of Western Europe. Kundera warns that this blindness puts Europe's cultural and political independence at risk, a warning that feels increasingly relevant to our current moment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Release date: Apr 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9780571378432

Milan Kundera

The Franco-Czech novelist Milan Kundera (1929 - 2023) was born in Brno and lived in France, his second homeland, since 1975. He is the author of the novels The Joke, Life Is Elsewhere, Farewell Waltz, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Immortality, and the short story collection Laughable Loves—all originally in Czech. His later novels, Slowness, Identity, Ignorance, and The Festival of Insignificance, as well as his nonfiction works, The Art of the Novel, Testaments Betrayed, The Curtain, and Encounter, were originally written in French.