With the same impressive combination of emotion and idea that characterizes his novels, Kundera illuminates the art and artists that remain significant to him, and whose work helps us better understand the world. As a keen and brilliant reader of fiction, Kundera applies these same gifts to the readings of Francis Bacon's paintings, Leos Janacek's music, Federico Fellini's films, as well as the novels of Philip Roth, Dostoyevsky, and Garcia Marquez, among others. He also takes on the challenge of restoring to their rightful place the works of great writers such as Anatole France and Curzio Malaparte, who have fallen into oblivion. The signature themes of Milan Kundera, such as memory and oblivion, the experience of exile, and his vivid defense of modern art, mark these essays. He argues that art is what we have to hold onto against evil, against the expression of the dark side of human nature. Elegant, surprisingly original, and provocative, Encounter follows Kundera's essay collections, The Art of the Novel, Testaments Betrayed, and The Curtain.
