From “A Short Lexicon of Milan Kundera,” an essay published in Revue des deux mondes in March to mark Kundera’s ninetieth birthday. Noiville is a novelist and a staff writer for Le Monde.

“a” is for architect

Kundera remains first of all the father of a form. Far from being exhausted or moribund, the novel in his hands is still capable of taking in everything at once—past and present, poetry and prose, fiction and essay, reality and dream—all with the most impressive fluidity. This novel—full of life, capable of knowing all and doing all—which defies limits…