Life Is Elsewhere

Life Is Elsewhere (Czech: Život je jinde) is a Czech-language novel by Milan Kundera finished in 1969. It was first published in French in 1973 (La vie est ailleurs). The setting for Life Is Elsewhere is Czechoslovakia before, during, and after the Second World War, and tells the story of Jaromil, a character who dedicates his life to poetry. The manuscript for the novel was smuggled out of Czechoslovakia by the French publisher Claude Gallimard, who had visited Kundera in Prague and encouraged to emigrate to France. The novel won the Prix Médicis in 1973.