Immortality

The New York Times bestseller by the author of modern classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

''Like all great writers, Kundera leaves indelible marks on his readers' imaginations.'' Salman Rushdie

From a playful gesture between an old woman in a swimming pool and a youthful lifeguard springs the heroine of a novel: Agnes. In the course of her daily life - Saturday chores, saunas, lunch in the hectic Paris streets - memories arise of her dead father, an unexpected widower. Their conversations flood back, and Agnes realises that her secret inheritance was his way of granting her freedom. As she mentally revisits her childhood, from formative loves to her intense relationship with her sister, her past casts light on her present: her marriage, daughter, and eventual death.

Exploring identity and existence, eroticism and modernity - with cameos from Goethe, Dali, Hemingway, and beyond - Immortality illuminates the nature of selfhood with inimitable wit, grace and intellectual nimbleness.

''A serial feast, a banquet for the brain.'' Observer

''A joy to read. Wise, rueful, whimsically philosophical, Kundera teases the reader with provocations and paradoxes.'' Evening Standard