It was translated into English in 2002[1] by Linda Asher, for which she was awarded the Scott Moncrieff Prize the following year.

Czech expatriate Irena has been living in France since fleeing Czechoslovakia after the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion.

In 1989, when the Velvet Revolution overthrows the governing Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Irena decides to return to her home after twenty years of living as an exiled immigrant.

During the trip she meets, by chance, Josef, a fellow émigré who was briefly her lover in Prague.

It paints a poignant picture of love and its manifestations, a recurring theme in Kundera's novels.