A Kidnapped West

A Kidnapped West is an essay collection about Central Europe. The book says the people of Central Europe are part of European history, yet they are its victims and outsiders. It argues that Central Europe is the nucleus of European values and a warning about dangers to the continent. Democracy there is under continued threat from Russian oppression. Language and culture help affirm national identity. Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have been overlooked by major Western European powers. Kundera warns this blindness puts Europe's cultural and political independence at risk.

Why You Should Read?

• Discover why Central Europe is presented as the nucleus of European values.
• Understand how language and culture help affirm national identity in the region.
• Explore how Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia were overlooked by Western Europe.
• Learn how Russian oppression threatens democracy and why ignoring Central Europe endangers independence.

About the Author

Milan Kundera was a Czech and French novelist. He left Czechoslovakia for exile in France in 1975 and became a citizen there in 1981. His Czechoslovak citizenship was taken away in 1979, but he received Czech citizenship in 2019. The Unbearable Lightness of Being is his best-known work. Before the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the ruling Communist Party of Czechoslovakia banned his books. He kept a low profile and seldom spoke to the media. He won the Jerusalem Prize in 1985, the Austrian State Prize for European Literature in 1987, and the Herder Prize in 2000.