Milan Kundera – The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 1984 (PDF)

A novel, even a novel by a writer like Kundera, should be judged in terms of its art and not its moral, social or political weight… What seems wonderful to me is that a work so connected to its time has not become outdated and sounds just as relevant today. The world, and especially that part of the world that we have called, with an irreverent freedom, Eastern Europe, has changed profoundly since 1984, but Kundera’s novel seems as relevant now as when it was first published.

However, its importance is nothing compared to that sense of lived life that true writers convey. And lightness, in art, more often than not feels like softness.