L'AMBIVALENCE ET LE PARADOXE DE L'EXIL DANS L'ECRITURE DE MILAN KUNDERA

With reference to the reflection on exile proposed by Edward Said, Tzvetan Todorov, etc., we focus on the ambivalence and paradox of exile in the writing of Milan Kundera: the ambiguous and complicated relations between exile and writing, and joint themes such as homeland, identity, language in his essays, as well as in his novels. Exile is perceived as suffering and as a field of fertility for the writer torn between two homelands, two cultures and two languages. Corresponding to nomadism, pluralism and the adventurous spirit of the writer, exile is thus transformed into a positive sign. If exile inevitably raises the question of identity in connection with languages, the past and the memory; it also metaphorizes the modern human destiny characterized by uprooting and instability. Under an ambiguous identity, man sets out in search of the true homeland that is art, literature. The writing of exile is an expression of identity anxieties in the face of change, but also of the need to overcome them. Art becomes the homeland, literature a true home, because it corresponds to the writer's aspiration to freedom and eternity by making works resistant to the force of time. The ambivalance of exile is a reflection of the paradox of man who goes through perpetually an identity, cultural and axiological reconstruction. The writing of exile is a reflection of his journey to find a point of equilibrium between fluidity and immutability, between deconstruction and reconstruction.
Heureux qui comme Ulysse a fait un beau voyage. Du Bellay (1558 : Les Regrets XXXI) Heureux celui qui n'a pas de patrie ; il la voit encore dans ses [...]