The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.

KUNDERA, Milan.

Item Number: 85633

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980.

First edition of the novel that brought Kundera his first big international success. Octavo, original half cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by Milan Kundera to Philip Roth on the half-title page, “For Philip Milan Kundera Paris.” With Philip Roth’s ownership signature to the front free endpaper. Philip Roth interviewed Milan Kundera on November 30, 1980, after reading a translated manuscript of Book of Laughter and Forgetting. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket with light rubbing. Translated from the Czech by Michael Henry Heim. Jacket design by Fred Marcellino. An exceptional association copy, linking these two giants of twentieth century literature.

"The Book of Laughter and Forgetting calls itself a novel, although it is part fairy tale, part literary criticism, part political tract, part musicology, and part autobiography. It can call itself whatever it wants to, because the whole is genius" (New York Times). "This book, as it bluntly calls itself, is brilliant and original, written with the purity and wit that invite us directly in" (John Updike).