Karl Leden works in the State publishing house in Prague. His work becomes complicated by the arrival of the Lenka Silver, and the reproaches of his ex-girlfriend, Vera. When a murder occurs, there are plenty of suspects - but the event is most definitely linked to Miss Silver's past.
Published simultaneously with Identity, his new novel, here is a masterful new translation of Milan Kundera's most brilliantly plotted and sheerly entertaining novel -- a dark farce of sex, murder, and motherhood. Set in an Old-Fashioned Central European Spa Town, Farewell Waltz follows the lives of eight characters: a pretty nurse and her repairman boyfriend; an oddball gynecologist; a rich American who is at once a saint and a Don Juan; a popular trumpeter and his beautiful obsessively jealous wife; a disillusioned former political prisoner about to leave his country and his young female ward. Perhaps the most accessible of Milan Kundera's novels, Farewell Waltz poses the most serious questions with a blasphemous lightness that makes us see that the modern world has deprived us even of the right to tragedy. Translated from the French text prepared by the author himself a quarter century after the novel was originally written, Farewell Waltz sparkles anew with wit, humor, and irony. A valuable addition to HarperFlamingo's impressive Kundera backlist, it offers readers a chance to discover, or rediscover, one of the very best works of a legendary writer. "It is hard to imagine anything more chilling and profound that Kundera's apparent lightheartedness". -- Elizabeth Pochoda "Kundera ... remains faithful to this subtle, wily, devious talent for a fiction of 'erotic possibilities". -- New York Times Book Review
A modern classic, "Immortality" is "ingenious, witty, provocative, and formidably intelligent, both a pleasure and a challenge to the reader" ("Washington Post Book World").
In this dark farce of a novel, set in an old-fashioned Central Euroepean spa town, eight characters are swept up in an accelerating dance: a pretty nurse & her repairman boyfriend; an oddball gynecologist; a rich American (at once saint & Don Juan); a popular trumpeter & his beautiful, obsessively jealous wife; an unillusioned former political prisoner about to leave his country & his young woman ward. Perhaps the most brilliantly plotted & sheerly entertaining of Milan Kundera's novels, Farewell Waltz poses the most serious questions with a blasphemous lightness that makes us see that the modern world has deprived us even of the right to tragedy. Written in Bohemia in 1969-70, this book was first published in 1976 in France under the title La valse aux adieux (Farewell Waltz), & later in thirty-four other countries. This beautiful new translation, made from the French text prepared by the novelist himself, fully reflects his own tone & intentions. As such it offers an opportunity for both the discovery & the rediscovery of one of the very best of a great writer's works.