The first work by Milan Kundera, a world-renowned Czech writer
A tragic joke about the mistakes of history

"Optimism is the opium of humanity! A sound mind reeks of stupidity. Long live Trotsky! Ludwig."

"The Joke" is the first work of Milan Kundera, a world-renowned Czech writer who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature every year.
Professor Bang Mi-kyung of Catholic University translated the original from the French Gallimard edition, which Milan Kundera acknowledges as the only authentic version, and meticulously preserved even the tone of the narrators in the novel, bringing to life Kundera's unique tone and writing style.

Kundera began writing The Joke in Czechoslovakia around 1961 and completed it in December 1965.
The first draft of "The Joke" was censored for about a year before being published. It was first published in 1967 and was republished twice more, and in the spring of 1968 it received the "Czechoslovak Writers' Union Prize."
When his friend, director Ishmar Iresh, was adapting The Joke into a film, Kundera was in charge of adapting the screenplay.
However, after Kundera was dismissed from his professorship in 1968 on charges of leading the Prague Spring, the novel was banned along with other novels by Kundera and disappeared from all public libraries in the Czech Republic.
It was not until 1989 that it was republished in Czech.

When The Joke was first published in French (1968), Louis Aragon wrote a wonderful foreword, and it was subsequently published in every non-communist country in the world.
However, many translations suffered from errors in translation and deletion of phrases, and in 1979, after reading the French version, Kundera corrected the translation of The Joke together with the author Claude Courteau.
After several revisions, the definitive edition of "The Joke" was published by Gallimard in 1985.
Afterwards, Kundera devoted himself to the translation and revision of other long novels for about two years, and today, Kundera's book published by Gallimard has become an authoritative model that Kundera himself acknowledges.

"The Joke" is Kundera's representative work that shows the ideological origins of his literature.
It pursues both aesthetics and historical significance, along with love between men and women and political criticism.
In this novel, Kundera begins with trivial, private matters such as love, friendship, hatred, and revenge, and warns against absolute faith and uniformity, suggesting that even well-intentioned ideologies can produce results different from their intentions.
It shows that absolute beliefs can completely destroy an individual's life.

"The Joke" has a unique narrative style.
Ludwig is the central figure and narrator of parts 1, 3, 5, and 7, Helena narrates parts 2 and 7, Yaroslav narrates parts 4 and 7, and Kostka narrates part 6. In particular, in part 7, the narrations of the three characters intersect like the screen of a movie.
It is a technique that uses each character's monologue to illuminate the entire life of each character as it is seen through the reader's eyes.

In these times of self-reflection, "Joke" is a question posed by an intellectual yearning for freedom toward the history and political situation surrounding him, while at the same time embodying the modern zeitgeist of a post-ideological era.

That's where my fear comes from.
Now, Zemanek can declare at any time that he has changed (and he has just demonstrated this to me with suspicious alacrity).
You might ask me for forgiveness.
This is what struck me as terrifying.
What should I say to him? What should I say in response? How should I explain to him that I cannot reconcile with him?

--- p.373