• kundera
• totalitarianism

We read Milan Kundera's The Joke in DDD's Rhetorical Agency class a few years ago. It's a story that shows how easily it is for a text to take on a life of its own. Kundera was an outspoken opponent of totalitarianism. That's why it's surprising to read this:

"A document written by the Czech Communist police claims that author Milan Kundera informed on a purported Western spy in the 1950s, a state-sponsored institute said Monday.

The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes said a team of historians and researchers found a document written by the SNB, or Czech Communist police, that identified Kundera as the person who informed on a man who was later imprisoned for 14 years."

There are not a lot of details to be had here, so the specifics of Kundera's "informing" are murky, but the Times seems to think this is a reputable source.

[Update: Kundera denies the report: "I absolutely did not know that person [Miroslav Dvoracek]," said Milan Kundera. The Respekt article, he said, was "an assassination attempt."]

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