生命中不能承受之輕
By Milan Kundera
（捷克）米蘭·昆德拉

《生命中不能承受之輕》（1984），是全世界公認最受歡迎的暢銷書之一，也是作者昆德拉才華得到集中體現的一部作品。

這是一部小說，描述了在1968年蘇聯入侵捷克時期（史稱“布拉格之春”），民主改革的氣息演變成專橫壓榨之風潮，捷克普通的知識分子在這個大時代中命運多變的復雜故事。主線有兩條：其一是著名外科醫生托馬斯對國家的誠實和對妻子特麗莎的愛——很重，因為他要為此付出巨大的犧牲，名利、自由皆失。其二是托馬斯的情人薩賓娜對生活方式的選擇，以及對托馬斯和弗蘭茨的感情——很輕，因為她隨心而為，追求無限制的自由。

這更是一部哲學小說，人物不過是哲學中的代碼，情節也不過是哲學中的情境。作者以一個哲人的睿智將人類的生存情景加以描述和思辯，使故事與哲學渾然一體。或許我們也是這些代碼之一吧，是那沉重卻踏實的“重”呢，還是那輕盈卻虛無的“輕”呢？如何選擇？

About Author:

Milan Kundera (born April 1, 1929, in Brno, Czechoslovakia) is a Czech and French writer of Czech origin who has lived in exile[逃亡] in France since 1975, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1981. He is best known as the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting[笑忘書], and The Joke[玩笑].

In 1985, Kundera received the Jerusalem Prize. It has also been rumored[傳聞] that he was considered for the Nobel Prize for literature In 2000, he was awarded the international Herder Prize. In 2007, he was awarded the Czech State Literature Prize.（對于一個被放逐多年的作家，得到本國的承認應是個莫大的安慰。）

Chapter One Lightness and Weight