Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera (Czech: [ˈmɪlan ˈkundɛra]; born 1 April 1929) is the most recognized Czech-born living writer, and one of the world's best-known authors. He has lived in exile in France since 1975, having become a naturalised citizen in 1981. He "sees himself as a French writer and insists his work should be studied as French literature and classified as such in book stores." Kundera's best-known work is The Unbearable Lightness of Being. His books were banned by the Communist regime of Czechoslovakia until the downfall of the regime in the Velvet Revolution of 1989. He lives virtually incognito and rarely speaks to the media. A perennial contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature, he has been nominated on several occasions.