Laughable Loves

A dazzling collection of stories - originally banned in 1968 Prague - by a 'magnificent short-story writer' (NYT) and author of classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being. 'A self-confessed hedonist in a world beset by politics . . . Marvellous.' Salman Rushdie 'Kundera's achievement has been to bring both private life and political life into one comic framework.' Ian McEwan On holiday, a man and his girlfriend pretend she is a hitchhiking stranger - but their game soon makes them strangers to each other. One young man reconnects with his grieving former lover, only to be shocked by her ageing body. Two friends embark on an obsessive mission to seduce as many women as possible in the Eternal Chase. A teacher fakes piety to seduce a devoutly religious girl: then jilts her and yearns for God. In these celebrated stories, Kundera probes our darkest erotic impulses and most destructive sexual fantasies - while seducing us with his graceful, whimsical prose.

The French-Czech novelist Milan Kundera was born in the Czech Republic and has lived in France since 1975. He died in Paris in 2023.