Milan Kundera, the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, has died aged 94, public broadcaster Czech Television reported on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, Anna Mrazova, spokeswoman for the Milan Kundera Library in his native city of Brno told AFP, "Unfortunately I can confirm that Mr Milan Kundera passed away yesterday (Tuesday) after a prolonged illness."
The Czech writer born in the city of Brno was a novelist, playwright, poet and essayist. He became the most important Czech writer in the second half of the 20th century, reaching out to the whole world.
Kundera migrated to France in 1975, after being ostracised for criticising the 1968 Soviet invasion of the Czech Republic. His citizenship was revoked by the Czech government in 1979 following the release of his book The Book of Laughter and Forgetting in France.
(With inputs from AFP)