The Art of the Novel is a 1986 essay about European literature by Milan Kundera, in which the author describes his opinions about the novel and his own experiences with writing novels.
Overview
The Art of the Novel is a 1986 essay about European literature by Milan Kundera, in which the author describes his opinions about the novel and his own experiences with writing novels.
Origins
The essay was not written by Kundera as one text, but rather as various individual texts written in specific circumstances, designed to be published in a single work.
In 1983, Kundera wrote "The Depreciated Legacy of Cervantes," which later became the first part of The Art of the Novel. Later that year, the Paris Review asked Christian Salmon to interview Kundera about his experiences with novel writing. The first part of the dialogue, "Dialogue on the Art of the Novel," became the second part of the essay. The third part of the essay is described as "Notes Inspired by The Sleepwalkers," a series of reflections on The Sleepwalkers (Broch novel). The majority of the remainder of the book is Kundera's personal reflections on literature, both his own and that of Franz Kafka.
