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The unbearable lightness of decluttering: When Kundera went full Marie Kondo
The author of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" has gone full Marie Kondo, emptying the shelves of his Paris apartment of 3,000 of his own books.
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Visitors to the Milan Kundera library in Brno, Czech Republic browse the books by the Czech novelist on April 6, 2023.
(AFP/Radek Mica)
Milan Kundera has had a bit of a clear-out after his wife had a dream.
The author of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" has gone full Marie Kondo, emptying the shelves of his Paris apartment of 3,000 of his own books.
The legendary Czech novelist has given his massive collection of author copies in scores of languages to a new library in his home town of Brno.
The epic decluttering was inspired by the writer's wife Vera Kunderova, who said the late American author Philip Roth came to her in a dream and whispered the idea into her ear.
"The decision was clear. There was no doubt," Kunderova told Czech radio. "There was no choosing."
"I prepared the whole thing and Tomas Kubicek (from Brno's Moravian Library) simply... boxed up all the books and took them away," she added.
Although she did have her doubts when movers left. "Sadness came when the shelves were empty so I put out some chestnuts and other small things I used to buy at the Picasso Museum (in Paris).
