While a large amount of scholarship about Milan Kundera's work exists,
in Liisa Steinby's opinion his work has not been studied within the
context of (European) modernity as a sociohistorical and a cultural
concept. Of course, he is considered to be a modernist writer (some call
him even a postmodernist), but what the broader concept of modernity
intellectually, historically, socially, and culturally means for him and
how this is expressed in his texts has not been thoroughly examined.
Steinby's book fills this vacuum by analyzing Kundera's novels from the
viewpoint of his understanding of the existential problems in the
culture of modernity. In addition, his relation to those modernist
novelists from the first half of the twentieth century who are most
important for him is scrutinized in detail. Steinby's Kundera and
Modernity is intended for students of modernism in literary and
(comparative) cultural studies, as well as those interested in European
and Central European studies.