The remains of Czech-French novelist Milan Kundera and his wife Vera have returned to the writer's native city of Brno pending burial, the Moravian Library said this week.
Kundera, known for The Joke and The Unbearable Lightness of Being, died in his Paris flat on July 11, 2023, aged 94. He wanted to be buried in his native city.
His wife Vera kept an urn with his ashes at home until her death last September.
Kundera was a French citizen since 1981 following the couple's emigration from Communist-ruled Czechoslovakia in 1975.
"Vera and Milan Kundera, who lived in France since 1975, have symbolically returned to Brno," the Brno-based Moravian library said in a statement.
French publisher Antoine Gallimard and Czech ambassador to France Michel Fleischmann last week brought two urns with the Kunderas' ashes to Brno, the Czech Republic's second city.
"Both urns are now in Brno and they will be taken to a grave when it is ready," said Tomas Kubicek, director of the library.
The Brno city hall last year launched an architectonic contest for the grave's design and expects to build it by mid-2025.
Kundera was known for dark, provocative novels dealing with the human condition and sprinkled with satire reflecting his experience of being stripped of his Czech nationality for dissent.
He was frequently touted as a favourite to win the Nobel Prize for literature, but never did. - AFP
