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Testaments Betrayed is a book rich in ideas about the time in which we live and how we have become who we are, about Western culture in general. It is also a personal essay in which Kundera attacks the shifting moral judgements and persecutions of art and artists.

‘This collection of essays, like its predecessor The Art of the Novel, is a joy to read, and in its wealth of ideas puts many a more sober academic treatise to shame.' Literary Review.

'His masterful, musical evocation of the interior history of the novel form ... In a way, this book is nothing so much as a gauntlet, thrown down by Kundera for both novelists and their readers to pick up - if we dare. And it is also a kind of aerobics class, in which all of us can attempt to work off our flabby hypocrisy, and try to assume some lean integrity ... Kundera's own canon may not exactly match our own, but that is one of the things that makes this book so stimulating ... We can only admire Kundera's breadth of vision and devotion to his art.' Will Self, Observer Content: PART ONE The Day Panurge No Longer Makes People Laugh 1 PART TWO The Castrating Shadow of Saint Garta 33 PART THREE Improvisation in Homage to Stravinsky 53 PART FOUR A Sentence 97 PART FIVE À la Recherche du Présent Perdu 119 PART SIX Works and Spiders 145 PART SEVEN The Unloved Child of the Family 177 PART EIGHT Paths in the Fog 197