The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a 1984 postmodern novel by Milan Kundera, about two women, two men, a dog and their lives in the Prague Spring period of Czechoslovak history in 1968. Although written in 1982, the novel was not published until two years later, in a French translation. The original Czech text was published the following year.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being takes place mainly in Prague in the late 1960s and 1970s. It explores the artistic and intellectual life of Czech society during the Communist period, from the Prague Spring to the Soviet Union’s August 1968 invasion and its aftermath.