World’s top authors defend Kundera

Eleven of world’s best known authors, including four Nobel Prize winners, have come to the defence of the Czech-born writer Milan Kundera, accused of being a communist police informer, the news agency AFP reported on Monday. A statement, signed by Salman Rushdie, Phillip Roth and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, among others, said that “a defamation campaign was under way aimed at tarnishing the reputation of Milan Kundera”. Last month, a Czech historical institute published a police report from 1950, suggesting Mr Kundera informed Czechoslovakia’s communist police on a Western agent who spent 14 years in prison as a result. Milan Kundera, who left Czechoslovakia in 1975 and has since lived in France, vehemently rejected the accusation. The statement in Mr Kundera’s support was also signed by Orhan Pamuk, John Maxwell Cootzee and Nadine Gordimer.

Author: Jan Richter