Reviewing Political Motifs in Kafka and Kundera: A Czech Story
Keywords:
Franz Kafka, Milan Kundera, Political Motif, Communism, Velvet Revolution, Czech Literary TraditionAbstract
This paper explores political motifs in the writings of Franz Kafka (1883-1924) and Milan Kundera (1929). These writers although hailed from Czech ethnicity and dwelled on social and political concerns of the region, do not represent the Czech canon of literary writings. Kafka’s work is considered either among German or Austrian literary tradition and Kundera was stripped off his Czech nationality and later came to be classified under French literature. This makes an intriguing case to study as to how their incisive and often lacerating criticism of socio-political conditions in general and communist ideology in particular cost their literary fortunes in their immediate literary and academic environs.
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