Novelists rally to Kundera's defence
Prestigious writers issue statement defending Milan Kundera against charges of betraying dissident
Alison Flood writing in guardian.co.uk,
Tuesday November 04 2008

'Orchestrated campaign of calumny' ... Milan Kundera. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Authors including Philip Roth, Salman Rushie and JM Coetzee have rallied to the defence of Milan Kundera. The writers are condemning claims made last month in a Czech magazine that The Unbearable Lightness of Being author denounced a western spy to communist authorities half a century ago.
The 11 authors who, along with the Nobel Prize-winning Coetzee, include fellow laureates Nadine Gordimer, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Orhan Pamuk, issued a statement supporting Kundera, saying that the "honour of one of the greatest living novelists has been tarnished on dubious grounds, to say the least".
They said they wished to express their "indignation" at the "orchestrated campaign of calumny" that has been waged against Kundera, adding that Kundera himself has issued a categorical denial of the accusations. The statement adds that "the testimony given by a distinguished academic from Prague clearly exonerates him from his charge", although is not clear whom the academic is.

Read Alison Flood's full pice at the Guardian online.