Kundera awarded honorary citizenship in hometown

The writer Milan Kundera has been awarded the title of honorary citizen in the city of Brno, where he was born. The 50 members of the city council voted unanimously that the title, which is awarded every four years, should go to both the renowned novelist and to the late cardiologist Jan Navratil, who was the first to perform open heart surgery in Czechoslovakia. Brno mayor Roman Onderka said he would be bringing the award to France, as Mr Kundera’s health would not allow him to travel to Brno. Milan Kundera, whose works include “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” and “The Joke” among many others, was born in Brno in 1929 and has lived in France since he emigrated there in 1975.